


rarely so well arranged

by thehobbem



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Ben Solo Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Identity Reveal, Prince Ben Solo, Princess Rey (Star Wars), Runaway prince Ben, Runaway princess Rey, Slow Burn, alternate timeline where the Empire never happened, because they are a dyad and share one brain cell and are absolute idiots, the KOR are lovable clueless dorks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24002497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehobbem/pseuds/thehobbem
Summary: Princess Rey’s plan is to run away from an arranged marriage to the prince of Alderaan, and live her own life. Befriending the Knights of Ren, the most wanted criminals in the galaxy, was most definitely not part of the plan.Falling  in love with their leader, Kylo Ren, even less so.
Relationships: Knights of Ren & Kylo Ren, Knights of Ren & Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 168
Kudos: 307
Collections: Ijustfellintothissendhelp, Reylo Prompt Fills (@reylo_prompts)





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Star Wars day, everyone! May the 4th be with you, always.

_  
  
_

_Theed, Naboo. 34 ABY._

It’s one thing to see the Theed Spaceport from the windows of the palace.

To see the piers brimming with freighters, shuttles, skiffs, and compete with Rose to see who can identify the most ships the fastest, that's easy enough; to look at the ships soaring above the falling waters of the Virdugo Plunge and wish she could leave on her own ship someday, that's like second nature to her at this point. 

Another thing entirely is to be in the spaceport.

For one, the waterfalls are very pleasant to watch, but no one’s ever told her they’d be so _loud_. How anyone is able to make themselves heard is beyond her, with the roar of the waters, the deafening sounds of ships docking or taking flight, the endless buzz of conversation and people yelling — of course, yelling is the only possible means of communication in this chaos. 

She squeezes herself against a wall to make way for a large crew of Ankura Gungans; when one of them glances her way, she pulls her hood further down her face.

Is she actually going to go through with this? Does she even know what she’s doing?

Rey bites the inside of her cheek — out of habit at first, and then with all the more relish as she remembers her grandfather isn’t here to fix her with a cold glare that silently tells her to stop.

_“Sorry, grandfather, it’s a nervous habit.”_

_“Palpatines have no nervous habits.”_

Yeah, well, but she does. And she couldn’t care any less what a Palpatine does or doesn't do. She’s more than a name, and more than a pawn for her grandfather’s political schemes. She’s her own person with her own opinions on what is best for herself. Not that he would agree with that.

The realization that she would find no warmth or love with him, his only family, hit her at a very early age. It was clear he merely put up with her out of an overblown sense of the importance of their house, and she’s always told herself that was fine. She didn't need him. One day she'd have her own family, friends, a ship; she'd become the best pilot the galaxy has ever seen, explore every nook and cranny of every possible system in every single rim, maybe even venture into the Unknown Regions, and find those who will welcome her regardless of her name. She’d earn love and a life on her own terms.

Meanwhile, her grandfather pulled a thousand strings in the shadows, each string moving a thousand others, until no one could trace the ripples in the water back to the first pebble he’d thrown. And one of the ripples has finally gotten to her and drowned all of her plans.

The House of Palpatine doesn’t need a princess pilot. It needs political alliances, needs her to ascend to the throne of Naboo and make babies that will ensure the continuity of their dynasty. Which is why she’s now officially engaged without her consent or even prior knowledge of the fact.

_“House of Organa is one of the Elder Houses, and one of the richest dynasties in the galaxy. This alliance will secure our hold on the throne.”_

Why, yes, of course. ‘Their hold on the throne’. Right at the top of Rey’s list of priorities, closely followed by ‘being engaged to some prince she’s never even met’.

It's been two standard months since her engagement to the prince of Alderaan was announced, and they still haven't met; she has no idea what he looks like, and he probably doesn't know the first thing about her. He's not remotely interested in knowing her.

Just like her grandfather.

No one's ever truly known her, no one's even made an effort to, and she's tired. She's tired of not being known, of her grandfather twisting her present and designing her future, of being treated as nothing more than a tool to consolidate his power.

The princess of Naboo can never be more than political leverage. Rey, however, can still be whatever she chooses. All she has to do is leave her title behind and board that Star Commuter.

Leaving the title behind is far from weighing on her mind; she’s never wanted it, and is not about to start now. What is far more regrettable is leaving Rose — but handmaidens are for royals, and Rey Nobody can have none.

She just hopes Rose won’t mind her borrowing her quarterstaff too much.

Taking a deep breath, Rey approaches the shuttle.

✦✴✦

_Jakku. 35 ABY._

“These five pieces are worth… let me see… hmmm… one half portion.”

Rey stares at him. “Last week they were a half portion each.”

“And now they’re not,” Unkar Plutt says, and Rey thinks she can discern the semblance of a smirk on his horrible face, assuming Plutt is even capable of something like a smile, no matter how unpleasant.

With an indignant huff, Rey takes the half portion and walks away, moving past the line of other scavengers and pretending not to see Unkar’s thugs looming ominously nearby. There are a hundred things she could say to the Blobfish, but she knows better by now. Scavengers cannot afford the luxury of strong opinions, a lesson she’s learned the hard way; last time she talked back to Unkar, his thugs made sure she went a month without being able to trade for food, and she had to depend on the generosity of fellow scavengers to survive.

But what a mistake coming to Jakku, what was she thinking?

Well, she wasn’t.

She boarded the shuttle back in Naboo without a care as to where it was going. The shuttle left her in Karlinus, where she was able to trade her clothes for Karlini garments. The next shuttle took her to Malastare, where she worked for one standard month at a refinery before leaving for Bespin. There, a couple of months saw her working at the mines before she left for the Western Reaches.

In her defense, the plan was to get to Takodana, but once her face was plastered all over the HoloNet as the Missing Princess of Naboo, she abandoned all plans and boarded the first freighter that crossed her path. And that took her to pretty much nowhere: Jakku.

Stars, what a godsforsaken place. She never knew there was so much sand in the whole galaxy. Every morning she wakes up on this backwater planet is a morning she misses the luxuriant vegetation of Naboo. She wants out, and she wants it _now._

But she needs a ship for that.

The credits she took from home, which weren’t a lot to begin with (royalty doesn’t exactly have much need for credits), are all but gone. All she has now are the credits she’s managed to save up from her previous jobs, but still a far cry from any amount that will buy her passage on a freighter.

Rey makes her way through Plutt’s junkyard, muttering a mechanical “excuse me” to a group of tall men in black standing in the way; off-worlders visiting Jakku for the first time, no doubt. No one who knew Jakku would dress all in black and wear heavy metal masks.

She eyes the old ships lying around. There are Corellian freighters, starfighter-bombers, Dornean gunships, and even a troop shuttle. Plutt has managed to scavenge, buy, and steal a lot throughout the years, that much is clear.

...Not being able to buy passage aboard a ship doesn’t mean she has no way out of here, now does it?

✦✴✦

The one she’s used to mentally calling ‘Thug #3’ falls on the sand with a soft thud, and Rey puts her quarterstaff back into her shoulder strap. All that training, paying off at last. She needs to send Master Luke a thank-you message someday.

How naive of Unkar Plutt. He should know better than to leave only one thug to guard the ships at night. Whatever the reason, be it because he thinks everyone is too afraid of stealing from him, or because he supposes no scavenger has the skills to fly a ship, it’s definitely a sign of hubris.

And he’ll see the error of his ways come sunrise.

Her feet are easy and light on the sand as she sneaks past a couple of ships — an ancient XS, an Allanar N3 falling apart, and an old Corellian YT no one in their right mind would ever pilot — and towards her target, a beautiful, if a bit worn-out, VCX-100 light freighter she’s had her eyes on since she got here. With a ship like that, she can go anywhere in the galax— 

Steps. Someone’s coming from her right.

“Otzz?”

Crap. That’s the voice of Thug #2.

Rey scurries to hide in the shadows of the nearest ship — and lands face first on someone’s chest. The only thing she has time for is a loud gasp before a gloved hand covers her mouth.

“Who’s there?!”

The man holding her against his chest stills so completely he doesn’t even breathe, and she follows suit. She has no idea who’s holding her, but she does know she can’t deal with him and Thug #2 at the same time, so utter silence now is key. But if Gloved Hand thinks he’ll still have five fingers after Thug #2 goes away, he’s in for a big surprise.

“Telon! Nomar! I found Otzz!”

More steps hurrying this way and gathering around the fallen thug.

Moving in fluid silence, Gloved Hand reaches for his waist while still covering Rey’s mouth, and the only preparation he gives her is a low “shhh” into her ear before he shoots three times.

There’s another thud against the sand, but two sets of feet hurry in their direction while their owners curse.

Gloved Hand hisses something she’s pretty sure is a string of Huttese curse words, and pushes her towards the boarding ramp, saying, “Quick, get into the Falcon!”

“What? I’m not going to—” a blaster bolt wheezes past her head, hitting the ship and chipping a good chunk of the machinery.

“Yeah, good idea,” she mutters, making for the open ramp as fast as possible. The Corellian YT is garbage, but it’s either that or running across open tarmac while being shot at.

She hears a few more blaster shots before Gloved Hand follows her into the ship, yelling, “Kuruk, let’s go!” before the ramp has even fully closed.

The ship begins moving — badly. It turns and careens, oscillating between soaring and plunging for a few moments; in the corridor, Rey fights for purchase before losing the battle and falling straight into Gloved Hand’s arms as he crashes onto a wall.

“Better than that, Kuruk, if you please,” he shouts.

The request seems to yield results: the ship finally levels up and in no time it’s soaring into the dark night sky, gaining more power and stability as it rises.

“Let go of me,” Rey grumbles, fighting to get out of his hold, and Gloved Hand immediately lets go. Standing on her own two feet again, Rey finally gets a good look at him: a tall, cloaked figure, clad in black from head to toe and with his face under a metal mask. He’s one of the men she saw this afternoon outside Unkar’s concession stand, she realizes.

“Who are you, where are you taking me?!”

He tilts his head. “I’m the one who just saved you from Unkar Plutt’s guards,” he says. His voice comes out distorted by the mask, its original human tone only a thin layer under muffled, metal inflections. Rey imagines the whole thing — mask, black cowl, distorted voice — is supposed to have an intimidating effect, but she grew up under her grandfather’s steely stares and harsh words; a cowl and a mask are nothing.

“Right, saved,” she scoffs. “You mean kidnapped!”

“I see. You thought you could take four guards armed with blasters,” he says, his voice tinted with a cold touch of amusement. “You. A scavenger. With your little quarterstaff.”

The contempt irradiating through every word is such that, before Rey can think about what she’s doing, her quarterstaff is poised against his throat.

“I’m an _independent operator,_ and I demand you let me go this instant!”

It’s very quick — his hand is reaching for something at his waist before she’s even finished her sentence, but she’s quicker, and in one swift move her staff hits his arm before she has it pressed against his throat and him pinned against the opposite wall.

It doesn’t last.

She’s pushed back almost immediately, not too forcibly, but easily: Gloved Hands is made of sheer size and width, and she’ll definitely be at a disadvantage in one on one combat with him. But she has more than a staff.

Before he can get any closer she has one hand out, palm facing him, and the arm that was once again reaching for his weapon is frozen in mid-movement.

 _Bet you weren’t counting on that,_ she thinks savagely. Those lessons with Master Luke are _really_ paying off tonight.

Much like pinning him against a wall, however, her new upperhand is short-lived, as she finds him surprisingly hard to keep under control. More than that: she finds resistance. Aggressive resistance, like trying to keep a rancor under control single-handedly.

He’s actively _withstanding_ her push, which can only mean one thing: he’s a Force user.

Baffled, she feels him annul her hold over him with every passing second, his hand slowly moving towards his weapon one more time. In a split second, Rey lets go and spins her staff again; he’s wide open, she’ll land a perfect blo— her staff stops mid-air.

His gloved palm is putting up an invisible barrier between him and her staff.

She holds her ground, offering him the same resistance he gave her not two seconds ago, and they’re caught at an impasse. Rey’s so focused on breaching through his unseen wall she only hears someone else approach when they’ve already turned around the corner.

“Master, we found— _what the—_ ”

Out of the corner of her eye she glimpses the newcomer reach for something, most likely a weapon, which is far less than ideal right now.

“It’s fine, Ushar,” Gloved Hand says, voice coming out assertive and focused, instead of the vague boredom from before. At least Rey’s breached through _that._ “Tell Kuruk to set course for Takodana.”

“But—”

“Go.”

The calm, almost indifferent confidence with which he says it screams of someone not used to having his orders challenged or protested; in a heartbeat, Ushar is gone.

“I should tell you there are seven of us here,” Gloved Hand notes, their impasse still unwavering.

The consequences are implied, and she doesn’t answer; seven of them, at least one of whom is a Force user. This is worse than Unkar’s thugs.

“I can see you favor a more aggressive style of negotiations,” he continues, and the touch of amusement is back, “but perhaps we should resort to a more diplomatic solution.”

In an unspoken agreement, they both let go at the same moment, each one taking a step back and breathing heavily as they size one another.

“Who _are_ you?” he asks. Rey can at least appreciate the mix of astonishment and admiration in his voice.

“I’m nobody.”

He sniffs skeptically. “Hardly.”

Whatever she’s about to answer is drowned by the sound of the alarms around the ship blaring frantically.

“What now,” Gloved Hand says tiredly, stalking towards the cockpit, and Rey follows. She knows her way around the old YT well enough; the nights she couldn't sleep in her miserable dwelling back in Jakku were spent poking around the ships in Unkar’s junkyard. But Gloved Hand shouldn’t know what is where in here, and yet he moves around like this is his home.

In the cockpit, another masked person is on the pilot seat, and Rey can’t help but wonder if these men never take those ridiculous masks off.

“Kuruk, what’s wrong?” Gloved Hand says, taking the copilot seat.

Rey could tell him a thing or two, or a thousand, wrong with this relic, most stemming from the same problem: Unkar had given it less than the bare minimum maintenance. According to him, there was no need to invest in something that had no buyers. Now everything around the ship is showing the severe lack of care, and crying from abruptly being put to use.

“What isn’t wrong,” says the pilot, with a sullen voice. “For starters, there’s a compressor on the ignition line.”

“What kind of halfwit puts a compressor on an ignition line?!”

“Unkar Plutt,” Rey says before she can stop herself, and Gloved Hand looks back at her. His dismay is so clear she can practically see it emerging from under the mask. To be fair, it’s completely warranted.

“Why would he— a compressor puts—”

“—too much stress on the hyperdrive flow,” she completes at the same time as he does. They look at each other.

Another alarm goes off.

“Drive containment torus is overheating,” Kuruk warns, still sullenly. Someone’s really unhappy to be here, Rey thinks. That makes two of them.

Gloved Hand’s attention snaps back to his task, and he examines the console briefly. “Field instability,” he mutters.

“You need to recalculate and readjust the relevant parameters,” Rey instructs.

Now both he and the pilot turn towards her. His gaze never leaving her, Gloved Hand casually gestures towards his pilot, and Kuruk mumbles, “On it.”

“How do you—” Gloved Hand begins, but is interrupted when yet another alarm to their right barks in angry red lights.

“Power overload!” Kuruk yells. “Field instability is hitting critical!”

“I can fix that!” Rey says, jumping at the chance to do something, opening the overhead compartment and poking around the controls.

Yet another alarm echoes around the cockpit, and Gloved Hand curses. “How many alarms _are there_ in this piece of junk?!”

“Coolant’s leaking!”

Rey taps him on the shoulder and he turns around in his seat.

“Try transfering auxiliary power to—”

“—the secondary tank,” they say it together again, and he huffs out what could almost pass for a chuckle. “Got it.” His hands move across the console with fearless expertise, like he’s intimately familiar with every single button on there.

She continues manipulating the controls, furiously thinking. What if she… 

“This hyperdrive blows, and there’ll be pieces of us in three different systems!”

Suddenly, all alarms die at once.

“What happened?” Kuruk asks.

Gloved Hand turns to her. “What did you do?”

She beams. “I bypassed the compressor!” she says, showing the part to him.

Silence. And another stare. She has no idea what face he’s making underneath the mask, and her smile fades away just as quickly as it came. It shouldn’t have even happened in the first place.

Getting up from the seat, Gloved Hands pats Kuruk’s shoulder with a quiet, “Thank you, Kuruk,” before motioning for her to come with him.

Right. She doesn’t have time to bask in her own abilities or their close call with being blown up to smithereens all over hyperspace: they have unfinished business.

They wind their way down the corridor and take a right into the lounge, where they find three more men wearing helmets and black robes. Is this some sort of uniform? It has to be. There’s no _way_ a group of friends up and decided to go around the galaxy stealing ships while coincidentally wearing the exact same clothes.

The men look up as she and Gloved Hand come in; two of them are playing around at a hologame table, while the third investigates the back of the bar.

“Found anything good there, Vicrul?” Gloved Hand asks. In reply, the guy behind the bar places a few bottles on the counter with a heavy _clink;_ when he speaks, his voice comes out in whispered gruffs.

“Riosan mead, emerald wine, lots of Alderaanian ale and a bottle of Port in a Storm,” he says. How he’s seeing or hearing anything through that weighty helmet is a mystery to Rey.

By her side, Gloved Hand shivers. “Force, throw that Port away,” he murmurs. “Where are the others?”

“Ushar went down to the laser turret, and Cardo is inspecting the escape pods,” the other whispers.

At this point, all of them have finally noticed her, and she feels the weight of their eyes locked on her with what has to be curiosity. Or so she hopes.

“Good. Guys, if you’ll excuse us,” Gloved Hand says, and for once, Rey is grateful for him. Another second of the dark minions staring at her and she would’ve growled at the nearest one.

The three men leave without a single protest, and once their steps have died away, her ‘host’ looks at her and indicates the seats around the game table. “Sit.”

It’s not a command. It is, in fact, said with a gentleness she did not expect from a criminal, like she's an actual guest. Nevertheless, she’d much rather not relax; not here, alone and relatively at his mercy.

“I’ll stand, if it’s all the same to you.”

He shrugs. “Suit yourself.” He walks towards the bar and examines the bottles one by one.

“Alderaanian ale. Yeah, of course you would,” he says to himself, and Rey hears that light chuckle again.

Going behind the bar, he finds a glass and places it on the counter.

“Can I get you anything?” he asks her. “I don’t recommend the Port, that thing only works for Wookiees and fueling ships. Not exactly meant for human consumption. I myself am partial to emerald wine, and the ale is quite—”

“Who are you?” she interrupts him. She’s had a lifetime of empty pleasantries and small talks that led nowhere, and this is exactly the kind of thing she ran away from; besides, there are way more pressing matters on her mind at the moment, such as _how can she escape from a band of thieves in the middle of hyperspace._

He lets out a discreet sigh. “Not a drinker, then. Got it.” He abandons the bar and makes himself comfortable on a chair, going so far as to stretch his (really, really long) legs over the table next to it.

_Wow. He’s really at home, isn’t he?_

He pins her down with a stare, and she holds it for as long as he keeps it on her.

“I asked you who you were, you said ‘nobody’,” he eventually says. “And yet, you feel like you have the right to ask me the same question and demand an answer.”

Rey juts her chin out. “If I have to talk to a creature in a mask, I should at least know its name.”

He cocks his head once again, much like a bird. “That's fair.” Before she can process the ease with which he conceded her point, he takes off his mask, revealing a mane of soft-looking black hair and a long face made of sharp lines and intense eyes.

This is… not what she expected.

“Don’t think the others will do the same,” he says, and the suggestion of monotony is back in his voice. Only a suggestion, though, and very much undone by the keenness with which he regards her. No wonder he feels the need to wear a mask — he gives away far too much without it. “I brought you here, so I think it’s fair to acquiesce to your request, but none of them are under the same obligation. And they have a right to their privacy.”

That takes her by surprise, but she can’t not agree with that conclusion. “Fair enough. That doesn’t answer my question though: who are you?”

“I’m Kylo Ren. And who would you be?”

She tenses up: Kylo Ren. Leading six men clad in black and masks. They’re— Gods, she was so stupid, these are the kriffing _Knights of Ren,_ who travel around the galaxy pillaging villages and ravaging cities where security forces just don't extend far enough. They take what they want and lay waste to what they don’t.

Reading the rapid succession of expressions on her face, Kylo Ren nods. “You’re familiar with my name. Good. So…” he raises his eyebrows and makes a gesture for her to go on, and she’s confused for a second, until she realizes what he means.

“I’m Rey.” Before he can react, she adds, “And you brought me here without my consent, so I expect an apology.”

His lips twitch — ever so slightly — and he gets up, walking past her and towards the bar again. Taking the glass she refused, he pours himself some mead and downs it in one gulp. 

Leaning with his arms on the counter, Kylo Ren watches her again with an amused look. “And I expected some thanks for saving you from those thugs, so clearly no one’s getting what they want.”

“I didn’t need your help!”

“Oh, I disagree.” His eyes slowly search her entire figure from head to toe, and Rey feels herself blush. “Unless you’re much better at concealing weapons than I’m giving you credit for, all you have is a quarterstaff, and while you _are_ very good with it, it would hardly get you past their blasters. Neither would the Force,” he adds softly. “You would’ve taken one or two down before a bolt hit you in the back.” Just as Rey admits to herself he’s right, he has the _gall_ to wink at her. “And you know that.”

_Cheeky bastard._

“You can use the Force,” he says, voice still soft and smooth. _Like honey,_ Rey thinks, and immediately hates herself for it. She nods, arching her brows in a clear ‘yeah, so what?’ “And you know what it’s called,” he adds.

The addition surprises her. “Of course I know what it’s called!”

Eyes still scanning her up and down in a manner that is just shy of invasive, he shakes his head. “There’s no ‘of course’ about it.” He nods towards the door through which the other knights disappeared a few moments ago. “All of them can use it, to a certain extent. They’re mostly untrained, learned it all on their own, and they call it ‘the shadow’. I told them it’s called ‘the Force’, but they still prefer ‘the shadow’.” Suddenly, he grins at her. “It’s more dramatic. Matches the whole...” he gestures vaguely at his own clothes, “aesthetic.”

Rey bites her lips not to laugh. That sure is an unexpected level of self-awareness from the leader of what’s supposed to be the most terrifying band of men roaming the galaxy.

Not that the glum pilot or the guy who speaks in whispers are very terrifying. Or the surprisingly affable, surprisingly attractive young man in front of her.

“But you,” says Kylo Ren, abandoning the bar and walking up to her. Rey takes a step back and he puts his hands up, before resuming his walk at a more careful pace. “You know its name. You know how to use it.” He slowly circles her like a predator around its prey, and she holds her breath, with every ounce of her attuned to his every move, her heart pounding and her hand itching to grab her staff. “You _really_ know how to use it; you’re trained. Exceedingly well, I might add,” he says, so close to her ear she represses a shiver. He steps away to examine her once again, and Rey wonders if he’s going to spend the entire night scrutinizing her.

“Who trained you?”

“No one,” she blurts out.

He raises an eyebrow at that, and she amends. “No one important.”

Saying ‘Master Skywalker’ is not an option. The last Jedi in the galaxy wouldn’t bother leaving his secret retreat to train some unknown scavenger from Jakku; royalty, though, is a different story. And Rey is no longer that.

“No one important,” Kylo echoes. “You are nobody, no one trained you in the ways of the Force… remarkable,” he says drily. “Well, ‘Rey Nobody’, I would offer to put you on a pod and send you back to Jakku, but that’s not what you want, is it?”

 _It absolutely isn’t._ But she can’t let him know that right away, can’t make him think he knows what goes through her head as easily as that. “You don’t know what I want.”

He snickers. “If you wanted to stay in Jakku, you wouldn’t be sneaking around Unkar Plutt’s shipyard in the middle of the night.” He points a finger at her. “You wanted to steal a ship.”

Okay, perhaps he does know what goes through her head. She mutters grumpily, “I was after a ship to get out of that waste of a planet.”

“Which one did you have in mind? Not this one, I’m assuming. You seem smart.”

She smiles slightly despite herself. “The VCX-100 light freighter next to it.”

Kylo nods. “Good choice. Much better than this piece of junk,” he says, giving the floor a light kick. Rey’s eyes narrow.

“You _chose_ to steal this.”

He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he slides one slow finger along the border of the game table, seemingly lost in thought for a moment.

“Yes, well,” he says in a low voice. “I know this ship. It’s garbage, but it’s still fa—” he pauses, and Rey can practically hear him thinking, trying to find new words in lieu of whatever he was going to say. “It’s still got some good light-years in it. So,” he turns back to her, resuming his previous smugness, “where do you want to go? We can drop you off on the planet of your choice, or at least take you part of the way.”

She stares at him. He’s… offering to help her? He, a thief and a mercenary? The master of the men who go from system to system wreaking havoc sometimes for money, sometimes for their own amusement — _he_ is offering to help her?

“Why would you do that?” she asks, watching him attentively. If her nineteen years in the palace, watching her grandfather pull string after string, and her one year as a wanderer have taught her anything in common, it’s that no one does anything out of the goodness of their heart.

But Kylo Ren looks genuinely surprised at her question.

“And what else do you suggest we do with you, ‘Rey Nobody’? We didn’t exactly plan to bring you with us, no matter what you think.”

Rey can think of a million other things they could do with her if they so wished, none of them pleasant.

As if getting a glimpse of what she’s thinking, he adds, with a creased forehead, “And we don’t deal in the slave trade, either.”

She scowls. “Right. The mercenaries have morals. Who knew.”

His face takes on an icy expression, but she sees well enough the fury burning underneath; his nostrils flare, and he works his jaw for a second or two, before setting it so tight it makes his jawline look even sharper.

“A surprise indeed. But we figured that if even a scavenger could manage it, it shouldn’t be too hard.” He turns away abruptly, his cape billowing after him as he heads towards the door. “Let me know when you decide.”

Huh. She hit a sore spot, didn’t she?

Just as he crosses the threshold, she answers him. “You told your pilot to set a course for Takodana, right?”

He stops at the door but doesn’t turn around. “Yes. Would that serve you?”

Rey nods, even though he’s not looking. “Takodana… would be great.”

“It’s settled then.” He takes another step, but stops again. Sighs. Looks at her over his shoulder. “The crew quarter has a larger bed than this one, and it’s near the refresher. And you’ll probably find my m— there should be clothes in the closet. Just… through there,” he points at the door on the opposite side, “turn left, and then first door on your right. Feel free to stay there until we land. We’ll be there in twenty-four hours.”

A bed and a shower sound incredible right now, if she’s being honest, and clean clothes would also not go amiss.

She shifts on her feet. It’s dawning on her that, Master of the Knights of Ren or not, he’s treated her very civilly. Yes, he’s an arrogant ass, but he’s also… a courteous one?

“Thank you.”

He inclines his head in what is more than a nod and less than a bow. “You’re welcome. Excuse me.” And with that, he disappears down the corridor.

Rubbing her eyes, with sleep finally kicking in, Rey sighs. It says a lot about Jakku that finding herself in the hands of the most feared mercenary in the galaxy still sounds like the better option. Of course, the fact that said mercenary is oddly polite — well-bred, even — and strikingly handsome goes a long way to make that happen.

What that says about _her_ is better left unexamined for the time being.

✦✴✦

Rey stares at the dresses hanging in the walk-in closet.

Before going to bed in the early hours of the morning, she grabbed the first tunic she laid her eyes on so as to sleep in something clean, a luxury she hasn’t enjoyed in the entire last year. Now that she has to leave the room, though, she needs something that actually fits her, instead of what’s clearly a man’s tunic — a tunic that would fit Kylo Ren and his broad shoulders perfectly, but that makes her look like a child wearing her father’s clothes. She expected to find something smaller in the closet, perhaps even women’s clothing with a bit of luck.

Most of the closet is just practical clothes made for extended journeys and physical activity. There are trousers, insulated jumpsuits, coats with blast-absorbing paddings, attires that suggest whoever owned this ship previously had quite the busy life around the galaxy (the life that _she_ wants to have, in fact).

And then there are four dresses of a wholly different nature.

Three of them are simple, almost austere gowns in muted colors, all of fabric and confection that feel anything but cheap at her touch; they remind her of the solemn clothes the Alderaanian delegation wore at her grandfather’s court during their visit. _(Arranging my marriage, probably,_ she realizes bitterly. Isn’t hindsight a wonder.)

But the one she takes off the hanger is something else entirely, far from solemn or muted, and one that wouldn’t feel at all out of place among Nabooan courtesans. It’s a finespun, backless affair in pastel yellow, pink, orange and lilac, with pearl clasps at the waist and a layered metal piece holding it up at the neck. An exquisite, fragile, extremely impractical thing to put on and take off, like every single court dress she’s ever had; all of her gowns back home seemed to have been made thinking solely of beauty, and not at all of the fact that she would much prefer to go to the refresher without Rose holding her dress for her while she pees.

This thing is gorgeous and beyond expensive, which begs the question: who was the previous owner of this ship?

“I’d be careful with that if I were you.”

She turns around with a yelp: Kylo Ren is a mere four feet away, leaning against the door of the closet, serenely watching her.

Rey puts the dress in front of herself in an attempt to cover her legs, left bare by the tunic. “What are you doing here?” she hisses.

“There’s breakfast, thought you might be hungry. I knocked for some time, you didn’t answer, I came in to make sure you were okay,” he says with a shrug. 

She eyes him with suspicion, but he neither makes a move to come any further into the closet, nor does he look anywhere else but her face, keeping his eyes above her neck as it should be. She relaxes a little, and notices he’s forgone the black cape, tunic and gloves this morning; wearing only trousers and a simple dark shirt that highlights the vast expanse of his chest and shoulders, he looks far less menacing (and infinitely more inviting).

“You… said something about breakfast?” she asks, in part to distract herself from those thoughts, and in part on behalf of her stomach.

His chin quivers for a second, like he’s holding back laughter. “Nothing too appetizing, but we did bring more than enough ration packs and some fruits. Help yourself to as much as you want. But I would suggest wearing something more practical than that dress,” he says, nodding at the gown in her hands.

“I’m obviously not going to wear it,” she replies with an eye roll, already grabbing the hanger to put the dress back.

“You’d look great in it, though.”

Halfway through her motion, she stops and looks at him. His words seem to sink in for him at the same time they do for her, and he looks away, running a nervous hand through his hair.

“I mean, it’s Nabooan silk, it looks great on everybody,” he mumbles. With his hair swept back like that, she notices he has ears that not only stick out a bit, making him look younger than he probably is, but that are also quickly becoming pink.

 _He’s blushing,_ she realizes, fascinated.

“Anyway, um. I’m sure you can find something you’ll like in there,” he says, still looking away, and staring at the wall so intensely one would think the secrets of the universe were written there in a language only he understands. “Choose whatever you want, I’ll… well, excuse me.” He leaves in a hurry.

Rey is left staring at the now empty threshold. That’s _Kylo Ren._ If there’s one thing she’s consistently heard over the last year, be it on the HoloNet, in idle talks in cantinas and outposts, or during meal times with other scavengers, is how the vicious Knights of Ren and their ruthless leader Kylo Ren rain chaos and destruction wherever they go.

How is it, then, that he’s also an attentive, kind of shy young man? The worst she can say of him so far is that he knows how to be annoying, is way too self-satisfied with himself, and far too handsome for her peace of mind.

Finding more practical women’s clothes at last, Rey changes into a sensible pair of grey pants, a dark tunic and a pair of boots vastly superior to her shabby ones. Before leaving the closet, she takes one last look at the silk dress.

How does Kylo know that’s Nabooan silk?

✦✴✦

Rey’s already worked her way through an entire portion of the ration, a couple of pears, an orange, and half a glass of mead when one of the knights comes in.

He halts at the door when he sees her. She stops chewing, her mouth still full of pear, and they stare at each other for a moment, neither of them knowing what to do. If she’s not mistaken, this is one of the knights inspecting the game table last night — it’s hard to tell, all those helmets look the same. This one has a black mask that vaguely resembles a skull, and a hood with two flaps that go down to his knees.

The more she looks, the less frightening he seems. 

“Hi,” she says.

To her astonishment, he answers her with a cheery, “Hi! Having breakfast?”

“Um, yeah, I am. Are you also…?” she trails off, confused.

“Oh no, I’ve already eaten. I’m the reason there’s no more starfruit, by the way, sorry about that!” he says, coming into the room and holding a hand to her. “I’m Ap’lek!”

“Rey,” she says, shaking his hand. She’s shaking the hand of one of the most wanted criminals in the galaxy. This is her life now.

“You’re a scavenger, right? Boss told us,” Ap’lek says, still in the same merry tone that not even the mask can distort. He points at himself. “I was a scavenger too, back in Dantooine! It was hell,” he adds, and she can almost hear him making a face under the mask.

Rey doesn’t offer an answer beyond a “hmm”. It’s one thing for him not to be as threatening of a presence as she initially thought, but him being downright _cheerful_ is almost offensive.

Ap’lek walks towards the game table. “Anyway, don’t mind me, I’m just here for the dejarik,” he explains, sitting at the table once again and turning on the game.

“Are you guys going to play?” Rey asks.

He sighs, shaking his head. “Everyone’s busy right now.”

Silence.

He pushes a button, watching one of the holocreatures idly move across the board. Rey watches, munching on a third pear.

Well. What harm can it do?

“I can play,” she offers.

Ap’lek raises his head. “Really?!”

“I mean, I've never played, so you’ll have to tea—”

“I can teach you! Come!” He makes an enthusiastic beckoning gesture to her; biting back a smile, she sits at the opposite side of the table.

“Okay,” he says excitedly, “each one of us gets four monsters…”  
  


* * *

  
“Kuruk, can you take o—” Kylo stops at the door, taken aback by the boom of voices and laughter in the lounge.

“You’re such a sore loser!”

“I’m telling you, she’s using the shadow to cheat!”

“That’s not how the shadow works!”

All the six knights are sitting around the game table (well, except for Kuruk, of course, who’s perched atop the backrest of the seats. And that's just par for the course for Kuruk), and Rey's sitting in the middle of them, apparently in the middle of a dejarik match against Cardo.

And Ap’lek is not wearing his helmet. 

There’s an _outsider_ in the room, and Ap’lek is not wearing his helmet. His sandy, disheveled hair, his pleasantly ugly face that would make you believe he’s fifteen instead of twenty-nine, all out in the open for Rey of Jakku to see. Standing next to Cardo’s seat, he’s holding a bottle of ale and laughing heartily.

What the… what’s happening?! Kylo rubs his eyes; is he drunk? Is this what happens when he’s alone in the cockpit for a couple of hours?

“She made a valid move, complaining won't help you,” Vicrul whispers; by his side, Trudgen nods vehemently.

Rey crosses her arms with a smirk. “You said best of three, right?”

“That was just luck!”

Ushar sniggers. “Yeah. Three times in a row. ‘Luck’.”

“Um. Guys?” Kylo says at last, and six heads turn his way (the exception is Cardo, who's still gazing forlornly at the holochess board).

“Hey boss!” Ap'lek says happily, raising his bottle at him. “Wanna play some dejarik?”

“Err, no, thanks, not right now.”

“You should play against Master Kylo some time,” Vicrul whispers to Rey. “He always plays with Grimtaash.”

“Yeah, it's an easy victory,” Ap'lek contributes.

Rey turns to Kylo with a surprised look. “Why would you choose Grimtaash? His attack is 2!”

Kylo stares. “Well, yeah, but he can stun an opponent for two turns.”

“At the cost of a cooldown of one turn,” she replies, and wrinkles her nose. “This is such a bad choice.”

The others mumble their agreement, with Trudgen nodding along. Even Cardo forgets his defeat long enough to shake his head and mutter, “Such a bad choice.”

“Well, _I_ happen to find Grimtaa— you know what, that's not important,” Kylo says, making an effort not to pinch the bridge of his nose. He's not going to lecture them on Alderaanian mythology, or explain why the creators of dejarik _obviously_ screwed up when making Grimtaash so weak in the game. Not again.

“Kuruk, I need you to take over for me,” he says instead. He desperately needs a shower and some food, he’s been flying the ship by himself all morning.

From atop the seat, Kuruk visibly deflates. “But it's my turn to play now.”

“I can do it,” Rey says, already getting up with a grin. “I’ve already won five rounds, time to give someone else a chance.”

Kylo opens his mouth to protest, but the memory of Rey single-handedly solving all the problems during takeoff is far too fresh for him to seriously pretend this is a bad idea.

“Uhh… yeah, sure,” he says. Not that it matters what he says. She’s already walking past him, out of the lounge and towards the cockpit. Unsure of what to do next, he follows, after one last look at the mask-less Ap’lek.

What in the Force.

By the time he catches up, Rey’s comfortably settled on the pilot seat, thoughtfully examining the console. He takes the other seat, shower and food indefinitely postponed. He needs to see this up close.

“So you’re a pilot,” he says. An empty statement, they both know it; but he needs a conversation starter.

_“State the obvious, and nine times out of ten, they’ll answer with something less obvious.”_

Far be it from him to argue with the queen’s more than proven tactics. Over the years, the only politician he’s seen it not working on was Emperor Palpatine of Naboo — but then, Palpatine is a completely different beast. That tenth time out of ten.

“Yeah, I am,” says Rey, not elaborating any further.

Well. Palpatine and Rey of Jakku, apparently.

The silence stretches thick between them before Kylo tries from another angle.

“Any plans in Takodana?”

She shrugs. “Find a job.”

“Not a lot of scavenging going on there,” he points out.

“I’ve worked at a refinery and in mines, too. I can fly a ship, I can fight. I can do anything.” The poise and the sheer confidence with which she says it really, really suit her. Although, if he’s being honest, he can’t think of many things that don’t suit her; even that old tunic she wore in the morning looked perfect on her.

It’s just his luck that of all the clothes in that damn closet, she would grab one of _his_ old tunics to sleep in. The image of her in it, with bare legs for days, has been haunting him for every minute ever since.

He clears his throat, banishing those thoughts for, well, later. “I didn’t know Jakku had refineries or mining.”

Her eyes still more focused on the hyperspace outside than on him, Rey murmurs, “I’m not from Jakku. I’ve been around.”

“Where are you from?” he asks curiously. That she’s not from Jakku comes as no surprise; there’s a glaring lack of Western inflection in her Basic, and also something of the Nabooan accent in there — her consonants are really strong. Overall, she could be from anywhere in the Inner or Mid Rim.

She doesn’t answer for a moment, and then, “Nowhere.”

Kylo groans. “Yeah, of course. You’re Nobody from Nowhere, and No One trained you. I forgot,” he says, monotone.

To his surprise, she snorts at that. It’s a little pig-like snort, and it has no right to be the cutest thing he’s ever heard.

“You catch on quick,” she says with the most absolute impudent grin, and he finds himself mirroring it before he knows it. “What about you, ‘Master’ Ren?”

He sighs. “Please, just… don’t,” he says. “They call me ‘master’ out of habit, they had another master before and they can’t stop; they think it’s weird.”

“I think it’s weird that they do call you ‘master’,” she replies, wrinkling her nose. It’s the second time she does it, and Force, she has to stop doing adorable things like that.

“You’re telling me, I feel like a slave trader…” he grumbles. “Anyway, just ‘Kylo’ is fine. What about me?”

“Where are you from?”

He crosses his arms and leans back with a smirk. “Nowhere.”

She laughs — _laughs._ At him, to his face. “Right! Nowhere is a Core World now!”

It’s only through his extensive training at court that he manages not to jump in his seat.

“What do you mean?”

She side-eyes him, laughter still dancing on her lips as proof of the fun she’s having at his expense. “That Coruscanti accent? No way you’re not a Core Worlder.”

That’s more than fair. What’s not fair is that he’s easier to read than she is, this is such an unequal trade; also, he’d never hear the end of it if his dad ever knew that, after years and years of political training, a scavenger has him beat at the simple game of talking and extracting information.

More importantly, though: this girl, who already has the loveliest face (and legs) he’s ever seen across the galaxy, is also thoroughly trained in the Force, almost beat him in combat with a staff, is one hell of a mechanic, knows how to fly a ship, recognizes accents (well enough to disguise her own, he guesses), and charmed all of the knights in the span of half a morning.

And she intends to get a menial job in Takodana?

“I want you to join me,” he blurts out.

Rey turns to him with surprise written in every line of her face. “Sorry?”

“You should… join me. Us. You should join us.”

What is he saying?!

No. No, this is fine, he’s offering her a job, that’s all he’s doing. She’s looking for one, right?

She blinks at him in confusion. “Join you?”

“Join the Knights of Ren.” And after a pause, he hurries to add, “You wouldn’t have to call me ‘master’, obviously.” _Unless you like that,_ his brain supplies in the most unhelpful of manners. “You just… you could stay with us. If you’re looking for a job. It’s a job.”

It’s a testament to his will power that he doesn’t just bury his face in his hands right there and then. Where’s the Organa eloquence when he needs it the most?!

 _“You have so much of your father in you,”_ he can hear his mother saying.

Yeah, he got the message, loud and clear.

Rey looks at him as if he’s sprouted another head, a frown marring her forehead.

“You’re suggesting I become a criminal?”

“What? No, listen—”

“You think I want to go around razing villages to the ground?!”

“No, Rey, that’s not—”

 _“You_ may think it’s a good idea to go around the galaxy destroying people’s lives for money, or, or for a laugh,” she says angrily, staring him down so fiercely he feels like the smaller of the two, “but I’ll have you know that, yes, a scavenger _has_ morals, so you can offer that ‘job’ to someone else!” she finishes, standing up and leaving in a storm of fury.

Kylo stares at the corner around which she disappeared, waiting until the ensuing silence in the cockpit becomes less unsettling to his own ears. He slowly moves to the pilot seat again, while his stomach reminds him why he went into the lounge to ask Kuruk to take over in the first place. Now he’s got no shower, no food, and no Rey.

He runs a hand over his face; he can’t exactly blame her for that answer. That’s just a choice he’s going to have to live with.

With a sudden chuckle, he adds ‘a hellish temper’ and ‘sassy’ to the list of her accomplishments. Wonderful girl. He would feel like killing her, if he didn’t like her so much already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some references:  
> [Theed Spaceport](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Theed_Spaceport) | [Virdugo Plunge](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Virdugo_Plunge) | [Ankura Gungans](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ankura)| [handmaiden](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Handmaiden) | [HoloNet](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/HoloNet) | [VCX-100 light freighter](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/VCX-100_light_freighter) | [rancor](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rancor) | [emerald wine](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Emerald_wine) | [Alderaanian ale](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Alderaanian_ale) | [Port in a Storm](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Port_in_a_Storm) | [the rainbow dress](https://i.pinimg.com/236x/60/ca/ee/60caee1ba0cdd724a03679d934c10db2--star-wars-costumes-star-wars-cosplay.jpg) (worn by Padmé in Attack of the Clones) | [dejarik](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Dejarik) | [Grimtaash](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Grimtaash) (write "Ben Solo is a HUGE nerd" on my tombstone, please) | [Galactic Basic and Coruscanti accent](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Galactic_Basic_Standard)
> 
> Moodboard by the wonderful [Rini](https://twitter.com/rinirawwrrr)! ♥ 
> 
> Based on [this prompt from reylo_prompts](https://twitter.com/reylo_prompts/status/1251417178450124800) on Twitter. It was love at first sight.
> 
> The title comes from a Jaime Lannister quote from s05 of Game of Thrones: "You're lucky. Arranged marriages are rarely so well arranged." (I mean, these ARE two franchises with infinite myth and infinitely disappointing finales, so it feels good, feels organic.)
> 
> Thank you to my ever supportive betas [Rae](https://twitter.com/regardingluv) and [Luc](https://twitter.com/maydaymaydei). ❤ (ɔˆз(ˆ⌣ˆc)
> 
> I also have a [musician AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23204260/chapters/55549408) going (with violinist Rey and pianist Ben), in case you like modern settings and music, and a [social media P&P/AITA AU on twitter](https://twitter.com/thehobbem/status/1228487438542286849)!
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://thehobbem.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thehobbem), where it's all reylo, Star Wars, and the wonder that is living in the same world and age as Adam Driver.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um. Slight bump in the number of chapters. Sorry. XD

_Takodana Castle, Takodana._

When Rey goes down the boarding ramp, trailing behind the knights, it’s still mostly dark outside, with only a faint tinge of light peeking from behind murky clouds on the horizon.

As the ship landed, she hadn’t been able to discern much of the planet through the darkness. Now, however, the more she looks, the more she can tell the trees apart and separate the lake from its shores. In the full morning sun, this will all be exuberant foliage and crystal waters, and she smiles at the thought. Here she’ll find a better job than mining or scavenging, something that’ll take her all around the galaxy instead of keeping her grounded in one single place forever. Something that’ll allow her to pilot a ship someday. Her own ship, even, who knows? ‘You’ll find all sorts of people in Takodana Castle,’ is what she’s heard so many times. Travelers, smugglers, pilots, all conduct their business there, in public or under the cover of casual conversation.

She can attest to the truth of it as they approach the castle. Despite the early hours, people come in and out as if it were broad daylight, and a plethora of noise emerges from inside — loud conversations, the clink of glasses, cursing, cheers, shouts, a song.

A group of Falleens passes by her, and before she can make eye contact with any of them, a gloved hand intrudes her field of vision, firmly pulling the cowl so far down her face she sees nothing for a couple of seconds.

“Cover your face,” Kylo commands, his voice once again coming out in dull tones from behind the mask.

“Thanks,” she mumbles back, adjusting the cowl so she can at least see where she’s going. He doesn’t reply.

They haven’t really talked in hours. Ever since she stormed out of the cockpit, he’s spent the rest of the journey strategically avoiding her around the ship. While she’s still offended that a mercenary thought she’d want to join them, in retrospect, he’d actually been very, well... _kind_ about it, in a weird way. To him, she’s just a starving scavenger. Many in her place would’ve said ‘thank you very much’ and ‘when do I start?’. Ap’lek had been a scavenger and he’d said yes, why shouldn’t she do the same? Kylo had no way of knowing her morals had never been dictated by where her next meal was coming from.

She doesn’t regret her refusal, but she can regret the manner in which it was done, as well as the resulting awkwardness. She regretted it all the more when he’d shown up at her quarters, already decked out in his heavy black clothes, with his cape carefully draped over one arm and his mask on the other hand, looking at her with careful, blank reserve.

_“We’re about to land, and I thought you might want a cowl,” he says, extending his own cape to her. How did he know she’d spent the last ten minutes raiding the closet in search of exactly that?_

_The way he keeps seeing through her and predicting her next move should be way more annoying than it actually is._

_With a low ‘thank you,’ she takes his cape, and he nods._

_“You’re welcome. I figured you wouldn’t want to be seen with criminals,” he says, before turning away. How he managed to sound proud, insulted and humble all at the same time was nothing short of a political triumph. Kylo Ren would be great at the little Senate games. Whichever Senate he chose._

He was, of course, absolutely right. Should people start associating her with the Knights of Ren, all her chances of getting a decent job would sink faster than a flailing Gungan in a pit of quicksand. Best avoid that.

She throws him a sideways glance as best as she can from under the cowl. That conversation at her doorstep was the last time she’ll ever see his face unencumbered by the mask, or hear him speak without the metallic tones disguising it. She wishes she could see _him_ one last time, see his unexpectedly warm brown eyes and his shamelessly smug grin.

Well, this… partnership of sorts was never going to last. It wasn’t even supposed to have begun, and she repeats that to herself a few times so that it sinks in. Jakku made for a sterile setting if she’s missing a criminal before he’s even left. What has become of her life?

Her attention is soon taken by Takodana Castle, a stone monstrosity looming tall and sprawling in front of them. She’d expected a colossal building that merited the name of ‘castle’, yes, but the dizzying assortment of bright, colorful flags is unanticipated. She tries to recognize the flags, but there are no dynasties or planets represented, and the only one she thinks she knows is the Mandalorian Mythosaur skull sigil.

“Maz Kanata has had this place for a thousand years,” Kylo says behind her, and only then does she register she’s gaping. She closes her mouth. “It’s a safe haven for anyone who gets here. It doesn’t matter if you’re from the Republic or the Separatists, what you do or who you work for. This is neutral ground.”

Rey scoffs, but only half means it. “Is there even such a thing?”

“You’re looking at it. Maz only has one rule: no fighting inside. If you break it, she makes sure you never set foot here again. So I’d suggest you and your quarterstaff behave,” he adds with vague, dry amusement that she appreciates, because at least he’s making jokes again. Maybe he feels it too, the impending end of their alliance, and has decided to enjoy whatever’s left of it.

Kylo makes an ‘after you’ gesture with his usual, incongruent courtesy, and she makes her way inside.

The main hall of the castle is no different from a regular tavern, only more spacious than most of them and made of old, impressive stonework. It’s also got a wider variety of types than Rey is used to seeing — life at the Theed Palace is not exactly varied, at least not under her grandfather, and Jakku attracts no one at all. Takodana Castle, though, is filled to the brim with all sorts of life. Here there’s a large group of Togrutas playing some sort of game with dice, there a small band of Sullustan sit behind a tower of empty glasses and bottles, singing a song in what she assumes is Sullustese. To the side, a humongous Dowutin sits back with a beautiful human woman in tight black clothes, while in another corner a couple of insectoid species argue loudly.

“Stop staring,” Kylo whispers, laying a hand on the small of her back in an unmistakable ‘keep moving’ sign; she swats his hand away, but walks on as requested. With all of them heavily clad in black and those ridiculous masks, the group doesn’t fail to attract a few curious stares, and Rey thanks the stars once again for the cowl covering her features.

They find a table by one of the windows, and from her seat Rey can see the contours of the lake nearby. With any luck, she’ll still be around by sunrise to see Takodana in the morning light. Kylo is about to take the seat by her side when a raspy cry stops him:

“KYYYYLO REN!”

The entire hall stops in its tracks, with all the noise dying abruptly and all attention now explicitly on their table.

Rey cranes her neck to try and find out where the shout came from. Following the direction everyone else turns to, she discovers a very, very short humanoid, with not a hair on her head and the most orange, wrinkled skin she’s ever seen on anyone (maybe because most humans and humanoids don’t manage to get to such an advanced age). Her dark, beady eyes glint mischievously at the leader of the Knights of Ren.

Seemingly the only one unperturbed in the entire tavern, Kylo gives the humanoid a polite half-bow.

“Maz Kanata. Long time no see,” he says calmly, as if she hadn’t just shouted his name.

That breaks the spell. Everyone around the hall returns to their normal activities with artificial nonchalance, and the level of noise goes back to what it was before; if Rey had to guess, she’d wager no one wants to be caught staring at Kylo Ren and his knights.

Meanwhile, Maz Kanata seems to think of them as if they were patrons like any others and not, say, the most feared outlaws in all known systems. She gives the other knights a nod. “Boys, how are you?”

The ‘boys’ give her a variation of salutes, from Ap’lek’s chirpy “hi!”, to Trudgen’s silent wave, to Kuruk’s despondent “hello.”

“Now, do my eyes deceive me, or is that the _Falcon_ outside?” she asks, peering at Kylo from over her glasses.

He sits down, waiting a few seconds before confirming it. “That would be correct.”

She stares at him in silence until he shifts in his seat. His discomfort is so visible it’s like the mask is not even there. Unsure of what to think before, Rey now decides she likes Maz Kanata.

Finally, Maz hums with a faint smile. “Some truths we just can’t deny, no matter how far we run, huh?”

The only answer Kylo gives her is a tired, “Maz…,” which makes Rey wonder what in the stars that cryptic comment is supposed to mean. Maz throws her hands up.

“I won’t say anything! We’ve talked enough about it, you know what I think. And who’s that?” she asks, her gaze finally landing on Rey, who’d hoped she’d go unnoticed behind Kylo’s massive frame.

“A new friend!” says Ap’lek enthusiastically, and Maz raises her practically non-existent eyebrows with amusement.

“She’s… our guest,” Kylo says, after a stretch of silence. “She came here in search of a job, and I’d be grateful for whatever help you can give her.”

Without warning, Maz climbs on the table, unceremoniously stepping on Kylo Ren as she does so, and gets closer to Rey until their faces are almost touching.

Kylo tries again. “Maz…” but Maz replies with a “Shhh,” and that is the end of that.

Adjusting her goggles to a different setting, one that makes her eyes grow three sizes behind the lenses, Maz scrutinizes her with such concentration Rey feels like she’s made of glass, and her whole body goes rigid. She has no doubt Maz can see more than her bone structure and freckles; she can probably see where Rey came from, where she’s going, and everything she’s ever thought.

At last, she shakes her head with a sigh and, readjusting her lenses to their regular setting, regards Kylo with another impish twinkle in her eye. “Kylo Ren, you’re as much of a fool as your father.”

“That’s un—”

“Unnecessary? And yet true,” she says, climbing off the table and not at all concerned with his opinion. She turns to Rey again. “There are also a couple of ships I can point you to,” Maz continues briskly. “I know that crew over there,” she gestures at a group of Trandoshans in the main hall, “is looking for a navigator, and those other guys at the far end are bound for the Outer Rim, and will trade transportation for work. Or,” she adds, much more gently this time, “you could stay here if you like, child. I could always use an extra pair of hands, and you’d be safe here. These walls haven’t been breached in a thousand years. If you stayed, no one could ever make you leave against your will.”

Rey holds her breath. The message is as clear as it can be without saying the actual words: Maz knows exactly who she is. And more than that, she understands. Then again, running away from Emperor Palpatine is likely to be the one thing most people in the galaxy would agree on as desirable.

“Take your time thinking about it. Meanwhile, I’ll bring you Tuggs’ Special, you seem like you need it. Excuse me.” And with that, she disappears into the main hall and down a corridor.

Finally exhaling, Rey sinks in her seat. What _did_ just happen?! How does she— no, wrong question. Rey’s face has been doing the rounds on the HoloNet News for quite some time, of course Maz knows who she is.

 _“You could stay here.”_ Does she mean that? Walls that haven’t been breached in a thousand years, that sounds like just what she might need. And she didn’t tell Kylo, why? How long have Maz and Kylo known each other, for her to speak to him as if he were no more than a child? What kind of past do they share? She knows Kylo’s _father?_

Among all the questions churning around her head like a maelstrom, Rey grasps at the one that feels the most palpable and most immediate.

“What’s… what’s a Tuggs’ Special?”

Kylo ducks his head, huffing out a laugh. “Really? _That’s_ your question?” He shakes his head, and Rey can well imagine the sparkle of amusement in his eyes right now. If only she could see it. “It’s a sandwich. Um… five-blossom bread, fried Endorian Tip-Yip, Falumpaset cheese, and relish.”

“Blumfruit relish!” Cardo interposes eagerly. “I’m telling you right now, Strono Tuggs is the best cook in the Mid Rim, and the Tuggs’ Special is to _kill_ for. Maybe we could…?” he asks Kylo in a hopeful tone.

Kylo waves a hand. “Yeah, that’s fine, we’ll ask for some to go when she comes back.”

“And mashed chokeroot?”

“And mashed chokeroot.”

Trudgen gives Cardo a thumbs up.

✦✴✦

She has to admit: Cardo was absolutely right. Tuggs’ Special is the best thing she’s eaten since she left Naboo. The Tip-Yip is tender inside and crispy outside, the cheese is melted to perfection and the relish feels fresh against her tongue. The most surprising part, however, is the bread. When Kylo uttered the words “five-blossom bread”, the only thing Rey had felt was skepticism — as if anyone outside of Naboo could make _actually_ great five-blossom bread! But here it is, soft and warm as if it’s just left the kitchens of the Theed Palace, and Rey’s never been happier to be proven wrong.

With her stomach more full than it’s been for an entire year, Rey sits back in contentment and lets her eyes roam around the place as the buzz of activity around the tavern indistinctly fills her ears. Ap’lek drums his fingers rhythmically on the table, and Trudgen nods to the tempo; Kuruk moves this way and that until finding the best position to crouch on the seat, and Kylo distractedly plays with a pair of gold-plated dice, each one hanging from the end of a small, thin chain.

Rey remembers seeing the dice hanging in the cockpit of the ship (the _Falcon,_ she reminds herself. Such a simple name for a ship), though why Kylo decided to pocket them is beyond her. They’re absolutely miniscule in his giant, leather-gloved hands, but he handles them with such tenderness that one would be excused for thinking it’s some long-treasured heirloom, instead of a trinket he found the day before on a stolen ship.

Suddenly, the murmurs of conversation at the table die all at once, and Rey looks up to find a stranger standing by their table.

The overall feline appearance of the newcomer, with his large pointed ears, brown fur covering a sallow face and small bony spurs protruding from his chin, leaves no doubt as to his being a Zygerrian. When he speaks, it’s with an unpleasant sneer that reveals long fangs.

“The famous Knights of Ren, am I right?”

Rey ducks her head so the stranger can’t get a clear view of her face, but Kylo and the six knights stare at him unabashedly. A few tense seconds go by before Kylo deigns to answer.

“Who’s asking?”

The question catches Rey unguarded, not because of the question itself, but the cold and dispassionate, almost inhuman voice in which it’s asked. This, she realizes, is the voice of Kylo Ren, the most dangerous warrior in all the Rims. And he’s never used it with her.

“My boss, Ashaiya Quorr. Surely you’ve heard of her.”

“Can’t say that I have,” Kylo replies. On the other end of the table, Trudgen shakes his head and Cardo shrugs, while Ushar, sitting across from her, goes deadly still.

That none of them has ever heard that name is obviously a lie. Even in Jakku people know of Ashaiya Quorr, the slaver who’d single-handedly revived the slave trade empire of Zygerria. Rey appreciates the feigned ignorance nonetheless. The stranger had brandished his boss’s name in a clear attempt to impress, and the complete indifference with which it was received took his arrogance down several notches.

“Right,” the man says, sounding confused. “Still, got a job for you. Easy one, too, and it pays your weight in credits.”

There’s another stretch of silence, during which all the knights consider the newcomer for so long that he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Well, what say you?” he risks after a full minute of being glared at. The fact that the knights’ faces are covered does nothing to hide the fact that the look is most definitely a glare.

“What would that job consist of?” Kylo asks. The stranger exhales, relieved, either choosing to ignore or managing to fully miss the contempt-laden disinterest in the question.

The man stoops closer to him, speaking in secretive semi-hushes. “Live cargo, from Nal Hutta to Vekorel. All you gotta do is make sure the VSB don’t catch you.”

Even though the babble in the hall is still going strong, the silence around the table has become so thick Rey can practically hear Kylo weighing his next words in his head.

“That’s quite the risk,” he says at last, “and ‘my weight in credits’ is not a number in any language I speak.”

A sleazy smile forms on the man’s face. “10,000 credits on delivery.”

“How many slaves?”

“A hundred sentient units. All wearing shock collars, of course.”

A hundred slaves. _A hundred._

Rey feels the caf she had before landing coming all the way back up. There were many nights back in Jakku when she’d gone as far as to compare the scavenging life to slavery — the constant, thankless work for nothing more than a few portions at best, the abuse they suffered from Plutt and his thugs, the impossibility most faced to leave such an employ, much less the planet, and seek a better life. Jakku scavengers led a free life only in name.

But at the very least, none of them wore collars around their necks, and they could still choose which of their skills to sell; slaves had no such luxuries.

Her grandfather, of course, had already lamented a few times the Nabooan intolerance for slavery.

_“A pity. Not every species is as sentient as others, and they would thrive under the command of more enlightened races.”_

Such an opinion had only served to strengthen Rey’s opposition to slavery, and if her engagement to the prince of Alderaan had one saving grace, it was knowing that at least the House of Organa is widely known to be waging war against slavery in the Republic planets. Queen Leia is famous for her passionate speeches about it in the Republic Senate. (And if Rose had her facts right, the prince himself has also made quite a few intense pronouncements as the Senator of Alderaan. Rose had promised her a recording, so she could see her future husband speak, but Rey had... changed plans quite abruptly.)

By her side Kylo goes on, gelid, “You suggest I risk my crew to deliver a hundred slaves—”

“Sentient units,” the man interrupts impatiently. Kylo stares at him, and the man swallows.

“A hundred slaves,” Kylo continues as if he’d never been interrupted, “past one of the most organized security forces in the Ertonic System, with no guarantee of payment?” The man starts babbling but Kylo goes on. “7,000 now, and 3,000 more on delivery, or no deal.”

The man’s face turns red. “We can’t just give you 7,000 credits before you’ve even done anything!”

“Then I’m sure you and your boss can transport your slaves yourselves.” And with that, Kylo swivels on his seat, his attention now seemingly taken by the HoloNet News playing on the nearest holocaster. It’s as if the man were simply not standing there anymore.

The man stands by their table in silence. Shifts his weight from one foot to another. After a while, he clears his throat as noisily as possible, but neither Kylo nor any of the knights pay him any attention; the HoloNet News seems to be of the most absorbing nature.

“We… could give you 5,000 now. You know, as a special favor.”

“The Knights of Ren don’t need special favors,” Kylo says detachedly, not bothering to take his eyes off the holocaster. “7,000 now, or no deal.”

The man gives up with a sigh. “Fine! We’ll do it your way! Happy?”

At that, Kylo faces him again. “I don’t see why I should be. Where is the cargo now?”

“It’s on its way on the _Miraj,_ it’ll get to the north side of Andui in a couple of hours.” The conversation changes into the more technical aspects of the operation, while Rey drowns in indignation.

_“We don’t deal in slave trade.”_

She’d heard it just last night, straight from his lips. And he’d said it with the most offended air, too! Yet here he is, more than happy to transport slaves from one system to another, no questions asked and no objections raised other than payment! And to think she’d been sorry to part ways, what a fool. No matter how courteous or smart or charming Kylo Ren is without the mask, he’s still only a mercenary at the end of the day, and his loyalties will always be to his own gain and nothing more.

As the discussion veers into the more revolting details of the transaction, Rey wills the anger and the nausea back down and tries to focus on something else, something that will help her tune out the conversation. Seeing Ushar completely absorbed by the news, and not at all interested in the negotiations, she tries to follow his example and not let the conversation bleed in.

**“CSF has doubled its police presence in Galactic City in a bid to prevent escalation of unrest and protect the Senate Building. Galactic City authorities are currently debating whether to declare a full terror alert.”**

Huh, it figures. Just before she’d left Naboo, tensions had been escalating between Corellia and the Republic, and the Confederacy had been courting the Core planet with, of course, promises of more autonomy and far less taxation. The Confederacy only has that one single trick up their sleeve, after all.

**“Chancellor Lanever Villecham continues trade negotiations with the Trans-Hydian Borderlands—”**

“Adults have more resistance to shocks than the children, so in their case you can—”

Rey bites the inside of her cheek so hard she gets a metallic taste in her mouth. The last thing she needed to know was the intensity of electric shock children can resist without dying. She’d previously thought of Plutt as the creature she hated the most in the galaxy, but he’s been dethroned so fiercely by this slaver she feels like going back to Jakku and giving the Crolute a kiss.

Well. A handshake, maybe.

Her thoughts are abruptly interrupted by the image of Queen Leia on the holocaster.

**“After a year of searches, Alderaan has decided to extend their efforts into the Unknown Regions, and Queen Leia has raised the prize to whoever can provide any information about the Lost Prince—”**

Ushar stands up all of a sudden, blocking Rey’s vision of the news, and Kylo and the man look at him with faint surprise.

Another silence ensues, during which all eyes around the table are trained on Ushar expectantly; he fidgets with the sheath on his torso for a second or two before he finally speaks:

“That will be all. We’ll be in contact.”

Kylo observes him for one silent moment, and finally nods, turning to the man. “Let us know when the _Miraj_ gets to Andui.”

The dismissal in his words is so clear the man has no choice but to accept it. With an awkward half-bow, to Kylo and the rest of the table, he leaves.

Rey lets out a relieved sigh; thank the stars the conversation is over. Ushar sits back, and Vicrul pats him on the back with such brute force Rey half-expects Ushar to come apart at the seams.

“I hate this part,” Ushar groans.

Ap’lek’s hand comes up to scratch under his chin, giving up once it bumps into the metal of his helmet. “But you love the next one!”

“Yeah, this first part is never fun,” Kylo agrees, his voice even lower than usual, laced with a deep sigh, while his shoulders droop tiredly. “Okay, what are we going to do with this one?”

Trudgen points enthusiastically at the enormous vibrocleaver on the bandolier over his back.

“Tempting,” Kylo replies, and Rey can hear the restrained laughter behind his words, “but I meant the operation itself.”

On her right, Cardo shrugs. “The usual? Distribute the 7,000 among the people and release them in Alderaan.”

“Not Alderaan,” Kylo says quickly. “We can’t take the _Falcon_ into Alderaan, or any Core World, for that matter. The ship is… too well known in those parts. We have to find some other planet.”

Trudgen makes a few quick gestures in Galactic Basic Sign Language.

“The VSB?” Kylo shakes his head doubtfully. “I’m not sure, reporting didn’t seem to work too well last time. They said they needed ‘stronger evidence’,” he says, his tone unmistakably acrid.

“I don’t understand how a shipful of slaves doesn’t constitute strong evidence,” Vicrul croaks.

Kylo shrugs. “You know how security forces are. So yes, we can send an anonymous tip to the VSB, give them the relevant names and such, but… I suggest we don’t rely on them for much.”

“I heard the words ‘shock collar’,” says Ushar, and the current of anger running through his words is so clear Rey shrinks against the seat.

Kuruk, still squatting on his seat, turns to Cardo and asks morosely, “You’ll see to that, right?”

“Yup. Got all the tools.”

“Okay, but what planet, though? We can’t exactly take them back to Nal Hutta,” Ap’lek argues. “They’ll go back to being slaves in no time.”

They all fall silent at that, and Rey’s head spins. They’re going… to release the slaves? They’re going to dismantle their shock collars, give them the credits Kylo asked for, and release them?

…Why?!

Despite the fact that she can’t see any of their faces, the furious thinking they’re all doing is so clear the masks might as well not be there. Kylo focuses on the table, so still he’s almost like a statue, Ap’lek pulls at his own fingers to snap them (just like he did at the dejarik table every time he thought of his next move), Ushar strokes his own throat, and Vicrul poses his hand on the edge of his mask in a pensive position, as if it were his actual chin.

Baffled as she is right now, Rey finds herself being pulled into their current conundrum: what planet? A much simpler question, with a finite number of options — a large number, to be sure, but also concrete, palpable, unlike “why?”

Soon her head offers her a not so distant memory, and hesitantly, she raises her head. “Um. Bespin, maybe?”

All seven knights look at her, and another beat of silence goes by before Trudgen starts nodding vehemently. Ushar follows suit, albeit a bit more slowly.

“Bespin,” he says, satisfied. “That’s a good idea.”

She finds Kylo’s attention heavy on her. “It is. It’s great, actually,” he says, and Rey preens. She can’t remember the last time anyone’s ever told her she had a good idea (probably never), and hearing the words from Kylo Ren himself only adds to their value.

“I know the Ba—” he halts; seems to course-correct. “I know someone in Cloud City,” he says. “She’ll be able to provide those people with shelter and transport to wherever they wish to go.”

“It’s done, then,” Vicrul says in a pleased grunt.

Excited, Ap’lek leans forward on the table. “Boss, you should ask Maz for some ale. Can’t toast to our new mission without proper ale!”

It’s the mention of ale that does it. She can handle being inadvertently kidnapped by a group of strangely soft criminals, led by an uncomfortably attractive murderer, and she can (barely) cope with job-hunting while watching talks on how to best transport slaves. She can even deal with the possibility that the most dangerous mercenaries in the galaxy might not be dangerous, or, stars forbid, even mercenaries at all. But the idea that they’re going to have ale, _kriffing_ _ale,_ of all things, for a toast they won’t even be able to really have in public because of their stupid masks, is the one drop of normalcy in a sea of bizarreness that sends her over the edge, and Rey stands up abruptly.

“I need some fresh air,” she mumbles. Kylo looks up at her, but awkwardly shifts off the bench to clear the way for her without a word. She leaves their table with a hushed 'thank you.'

Weaving her way through the pockets of conversation and/or fighting (hard to tell, after a certain decibel has been reached in any given interaction), Rey crosses the main hall with brisk steps and walks out the front door.

✦✴✦

Outside, dawn makes its way into lighter shades of blue, while dark orange clouds tear amber slashes across the sky and Takodana starts to come as alive as Rey had hoped it would; lush, emerald green spreading as far as she can see, each leaf generously dusted with morning dew until the trees and the grass glitter like aqua jewels, and dawn smells like rain on a summer morning. She hasn’t enjoyed cold, fresh air like this for an entire year, as Jakku is nothing more than a suffocating dome of heat and sand.

Takodana, though, almost feels like Naboo, but with a promise of freedom her previous life had never held. What if she accepts Maz’s offer? What if she stays here?

She could. She’d be safe, well-fed, free and surrounded by forests and lakes. This could be as close to a home as she’s ever had.

_“You should… join me.”_

Rey almost swats the memory away. The offer, made in his rich, low tones that never fail to snake under her skin (in ways so pleasant it feels like they cross the line into sinful), had come out as more of a request than an offer, one she was quick to refuse, but slow in forgetting.

There’s no sense, let alone decency, in her joining the Knights of Ren, no matter how much she’s come to like them in the span of a day. How could she possibly join a group of mercenaries?

But are they?

_“The usual? Distribute the 7,000 among the people and release them in Alderaan.”_

_“Reporting didn’t seem to work too well last time.”_

...what is it that they really do?

An unexpected greeting snaps her out of her thoughts.

“Hello, Rey.”

She freezes. There’s only one sentient being capable of making her name sound that repulsive. Turning around, she finds Unkar Plutt giving her one of his hideous teeth-baring that, in theory, are supposed to pass for a smile.

“Plutt,” she replies drily. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” One of his massive, oily hands grabs her arm and yanks her close, and when he speaks again, she’s showered in his rancid, pungent breath. Well, there goes the handshake she’d considered giving him. “Did you think that cowl would hide you? It takes more than that for me to not recognize a thief.”

Her eyes go wide: the _Falcon._ “How did you—?”

“Homing device _._ The ship you _stole_ was easy enough to track down when she left hyperspace.”

She tries to twist her arm free, but to no avail. His hand wraps easily around her entire arm like shackles.

"I suggest _kindly_ that you let go of me," she says firmly, even though she has no idea what would follow the implied 'otherwise' of her sentence. She can't take off the cape without the use of both arms, and can't get to the staff on her back without taking off the cape. She's virtually defenseless, and they both know it.

Distantly, she registers a vaguely familiar buzzing sound coming from somewhere behind them, but it's drowned by Plutt's self-satisfied snarl. “And _I_ suggest, less kindly, that you give me back my ship, or you won't have an arm to pilot it with.”

Before she can answer that, the hand wrapped around her arm loses its pressure, and she notes with dawning horror that it’s no longer attached to its arm. It’s only when Plutt screams that she understands that what she’d heard in the background was that of a lightsaber being ignited.

A _lightsaber._ She hasn’t seen one in years, not since her training with Luke had come to an end, she didn’t think there even was another in this day and age. But here it is, blue instead of Luke’s green blade, sitting dangerously close to Plutt's throat — a hair closer and it'd scorch him — and holding its hilt, the gloved hand of Kylo Ren.

"I believe the young lady was clear enough about letting her go," he says, completely unaffected by Plutt’s howls of pain, his voice biting like untempered iron. "As for the ship, it's not yours to claim."

Grasping his cauterized stump, Plutt utters through gritted teeth, “I got it from the Irving Boys!”

“And by _got_ he means he _stole,”_ Rey emphasizes. The fingers of Plutt’s severed arm remain wrapped around her arm, and she peels it off with a disgusted “ugh.” The arm falls on the ground with a dull splat.

“It wasn’t yours to begin with, and it’s not yours now,” Kylo replies. “I strongly recommend that you pick up the only thing that is truly yours here, which is your arm, and leave, before I force you to pick up more of your pieces.”

Still cradling what’s left of his arm, Plutt scowls at Kylo Ren. “A man hiding behind a mask ain’t much to worry about, lightsaber or not. Jarlork! Telon!”

Plutt’s thugs materialize behind him, all six of them, and they quickly surround Rey and Kylo.

“Crap,” she mutters. “Where are the others?”

“Still inside,” he replies, his words barely audible above the hum of his lightsaber.

They both attempt to put some distance between them and the thugs, and end up back to back. With her whole focus on her surroundings, and her eyes jumping from one thug to another as they draw their weapons and close the circle on them, Rey becomes hyper aware of Kylo’s presence. Not his presence at her back, but in the Force. Back on the Falcon she’d been too perplexed by the suddenness of the escape to notice, but now his Force signature is all she can feel.

It strangely reminds her of Luke’s, in the way it’s solid, clear, and disciplined; but where Luke’s was subtle and peaceful, Kylo’s feels like a lurking sando aqua monster ready to pounce at its prey. And running beneath the discipline there’s an undercurrent of wild, jagged corners, like the polish of thorough training is the only thing keeping an untamed, hungry beast under control.

He is, she realizes, _excited_ for what’s about to happen.

Against all odds, she begins to feel sorry for Plutt’s thugs.

“Perhaps now would be a good time to put your quarterstaff to use,” he adds roughly.

As she lets the cape fall on the ground in order to draw her quarterstaff, she grins. “I thought you told me to behave?”

She hears a short chuckle. “My mistake. Please feel free to misbehave at will.”

“With pleasure,” she practically growls.

The first one to rush towards her is Thug #3 with an ax, and she smiles to herself. She took him out once, she can do it again. She parries his first blow, one that would’ve gifted her arm the same fate Kylo’s lightsaber had gifted Plutt’s. Thug #3 presses on, his physical strength overpowering hers inch by inch until the blade of his ax comes too close to her nose. Behind him, she gets a glimpse of another thug ready to attack her as well.

 _“Stop using your muscles, stop being literal. Reach out with your feelings,”_ Luke’s instructions echo from a distant memory.

Closing her eyes for one moment, Rey focuses on breathing instead of attacking. Focuses on _feeling._ The next moment, Thug #3 is flying some ten yards away from her, and she basks in it for a fleeting second before she refocuses on Thug #4 and the wild swing of his morning star coming her way. She ducks, wheeling her staff in a close sweep and finding the thug’s kneecaps, bringing him down instantly. Behind her, she hears Kylo’s grunts and somebody hit the ground heavily.

On her right, someone with a blade attacks Kylo while his attention is engaged by another thug. She turns around and deals a savage blow to blade thug, practically burying the end of her staff in his stomach and sending him sprawling on the ground, blade flying several feet away.

Thug #1 draws a blaster, and the only thing Rey has time for is to blindly grab Kylo’s thigh and yell, “duck!” She follows her own advice, but Kylo does her one better: his hand raises sharp as a whip, and the bolt freezes midair. Both Rey and the thug stop abruptly in shock, and she gapes. Kylo _stopped_ the discharge of a blaster with the Force?! How’s that even possible? Another gesture from Kylo, and the bolt is sent back straight at the thug; the man falls and doesn’t move again.

Blade thug and another one with some kind of lance charge at Kylo at the same time, and she feels him move away as he tries to find more room to defend himself. While she’d love to help, she’s got herself to worry about, with Thug #3 practically pouncing back at her, and she spreads her feet wider to brace for the impact.

_“When the foundation is weak, the whole building comes crashing down,” said Luke, sending her into the ground with an expert blow of his staff on her right ankle._

She blocks the new attack, not even wavering from her stance. Quickly raising her hand, fingers splayed out towards the ax, she forces the weapon off her staff and away from her, meeting close to no resistance. The confusion on Thug #3’s face is _priceless,_ but she doesn’t have time to enjoy it; as soon as she’s managed to force the ax and the arm yielding it well above the thug’s head, she swings her staff again and hits him on the nose and then between his legs. One-two.

_“One-two, one-two. Your weapon has two ends, why would you use only one?”_

Luke’s a cranky old man, but he does know a thing or two. Again, a thank-you note really is in order. If only she knew where to send it to.

A body tumbles at her feet, and she finds blade thug impaled on Kylo’s lightsaber. At the same time, Rey notices Unkar Plutt running away. Scum. Leaving his men to fight for him while he flees. Without a single thought, she drops her staff and yanks Kylo’s lightsaber from the corpse to chase after Plutt, but a strangled noise catches her attention. A few meters away, the last thug still standing is using his vibro-lance to keep Kylo in a headlock. Kylo has one hand between his own throat and the weapon, fighting an uphill battle, and the other flailing blindly, trying to get hold of something, anything.

“Kylo!” she yells, throwing his lightsaber back to him.

He catches it with his free hand, and in the work of a second it’s been ignited. Rey looks away; he ignited it straight through the man’s face. When the thug slumps and his headlock slacks, Kylo turns off the saber again, and the body hits the ground with a final, dull thud.

They stand among the bodies strewn across the ground and stare at each other. Rey draws in one sharp breath after another, and Kylo matches hers down to the millisecond.

“Well,” she says with a small, smug smile, “that should do it.”

The answer she gets is a loud, undignified snort, one that is too little like the darkness of his clothes and the metal austerity of his helmet, and too much like the man underneath. Kylo Ren presents himself as a nightmare, but laughs like someone Rey wouldn’t mind dreaming of.

After clipping his lightsaber back on his belt, Kylo glances around and, making sure they’re alone, finally gives into Rey’s secret hopes and takes off his helmet, offering a much less put-together view this time than when he last unmasked for her. His hair is a mess of dark, sweaty waves that cling to his cheek and neck, and his face glistens with perspiration. The overall effect shouldn’t be this inconveniently, viscerally attractive, shouldn’t bite at the pit of her stomach and fill her up to her throat — but it does, and when the thought _‘He needs a shower’_ crosses her mind, her brain immediately adds, _‘With me.’_ Kylo runs a hand through his mane, trying to get as much of it as he can off his face, and Rey comes too close to offering, _‘No no, let me.’_

“Yes, I’d say so,” he agrees amusedly, taking off his gloves. His smile reveals a sudden dimple on his right cheek, and Rey likes it so much that it circles all the way back to making her hate him. What’s the point in him being so… _charming,_ and looking like he was sculpted straight out of an oak tree, if he’s just going to be one of the worst people to roam the galaxy?

Except… is he, really?

“Shall we go back?” he asks. Coming closer, he offers her a hand.

For one heartbeat, Rey considers taking the hand, but she wants a couple of answers first. After sheathing her staff, she crosses her arms and fixes him with a steady look. “What was that inside?”

He stills. “What was that what?”

“That conversation about reporting the Zygerrians and releasing the slaves in Bespin. What was that all about?”

His face instantly becomes a slate of blank, inscrutable politeness as he drops his hand, but the fleeting beat of silence tells her he doesn’t have one of his smart replies ready at the tip of his tongue this time. Most people wouldn’t have caught the hesitation — _oh,_ he’s well trained all right. By whom is a question for another time, assuming he’d even answer.

“I’ve told you before, we don’t deal in slavery.” The way he says it, with a casual shrug, screams of indifference, but Rey doesn’t believe it for one second. He put far too much thought into bringing down the slaver’s operation; the amount of indifference he feels towards the subject is zero.

“You could’ve just said no to the job, then. Why didn’t you?”

“I was under the impression you didn’t approve of the trade either. Was I mistaken?” he asks coldly.

She practically chokes at that. “Wha— of course not!”

“I’m glad we understand each other. Now, can we _please—_ ”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she interrupts, taking a step forward. As skillfully as it may have been done, she’s not about to fall for his deflection maneuvers now. Not from such a short distance, where she can see the effort he puts in keeping up the mask of disinterest. Something doesn’t add up, and she needs to know all the factors in the equation. “Why not simply say no? Why make him believe you’re taking the job? What do you gain by that?”

“I gain nothing,” he snaps back. “Believe it or not, Rey of Jakku, sometimes people do things with no prospect of personal gain.” The veneer of composure has melted away and left in its stead an exasperated frown.

She scoffs. “Right. You mean to tell me you woke up today and decided to take down a slaver’s operation, because, what, you felt like it?!”

“I didn’t— you—” he splutters, throwing his helmet on the ground In irritation. _“Force,_ you’re infuriating, did you know that? Why do you even care what I do?!”

“I don’t,” she spits out. The fact that this feels like a lie is a mild inconvenience she’ll examine later. “But I don’t exactly like being lied to.”

In one single stride _(those ridiculously long legs,_ her brain chimes in) he’s mere inches away from her face, managing to look both livid and genuinely baffled. “I don’t deal in lies, either. I have _never_ lied to you.”

“Well, great, but you haven’t—” she halts abruptly, and Kylo holds his breath. They both seem to realize at the same time that he is, in fact, mere inches away from her face. She could count the individual strands of hair framing his face if she wanted to, and trace entire constellations on his beauty marks. The smell of sweat, leather, and musk fills her lungs until it’s all she can think of.

“You haven’t… been telling me the whole truth, either,” she says in a near whisper.

“Right,” Kylo mumbles, eyes flitting briefly down to her mouth. To her surprise, he shakes his head slightly. “You won’t give me one single piece of information about yourself while still demanding truths from me. You have some nerve.” He squints at her, amusement now clear on his features. “Who raised you?”

Her face burns up at the question. The thought that her grandfather’s unyielding manners may have rubbed off on her is an unpleasant one. “That’s none of your business!”

“Yes, I know,” he says, waving his hand dismissively. “Nobody from Nowhere, and so on and so forth. This is getting a bit trite.”

“Then maybe you should stop asking.”

Kylo hums, his gaze now unmistakably trained on her lips. “I don’t want to,” he murmurs distractedly, “but perhaps I should.” They stand like that for another long moment, so close their breaths tangle into each other, and the need to weave her fingers into his hair fizzles desperately under her skin.

 _I could do it,_ she thinks wildly, partially hypnotized by a stray lock of hair that insists on falling over his eyes, no matter how many times he pushes it back. _I can say I’m trying to help. He wouldn’t mind, would he?_

The deep sigh he lets out snaps her out of her reverie. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Kylo takes a couple of steps back and picks his helmet off the ground.

“What do you want to know?” he asks in a low voice.

“I told you. Why did you—”

“No. What do you _really_ want to know?” he interrupts, carefully dusting off the helmet and pointedly not looking at her.

This catches her off-guard, and she doesn’t reply. They both know he’s right. Her original question is nothing but a cue to what she actually hopes to hear, but he won’t say it unless she asks him directly. Fine.

“You pretended to accept the job just so you could free those slaves,” she says.

“That’s not a question.”

She rolls her eyes. And _she’s_ the infuriating one. Sure.

“How often do you do this?”

A pause. Kylo bends down and takes the cape Rey shrugged off from the ground. He gives it a few shakes to dust it off, and proceeds to neatly fold it over his arm before he finally answers. “As often as people offer us this kind of job.”

This time, he risks a glance at her feet. _He’d rather not talk about it,_ she thinks. How’s that even possible? He should be _announcing_ it wherever he goes.

But if he does that…

“So… the more people spread rumors of how you… you—”

“Raze villages to the ground and destroy people’s lives for money?” he finishes sharply, throwing at her the same words he spat at him just yesterday. Well, he would.

“Yes, that,” she agrees coolly. She’s not going to be guilt tripped for believing exactly what he wants everyone else to believe. He dug that hole, he can stay in there by himself. “The worse the rumors, the more they’ll offer you the worst jobs. Is that… is that your plan?”

Kylo opens his arms in the most helpless gesture Rey’s ever seen on anyone. “Pretty much, yes.”

“So the killing and the burning and the havoc…”

The shadow of a smirk crosses his features. “All very useful for fame, but not too close to the truth, I’m afraid.”

She frowns, confused. “How did these rumors even start, if you don’t…?”

He sighs. “Remember when I told you they had another ‘master’ before me?” Rey nods. “That was Ren. _The_ Ren of the Knights of Ren. I met him and the other knights a couple of years ago on a mission, and when they saw I could use the Force, they proposed I join them.” Kylo runs a nervous hand through his hair again. “Ren would take any job for money, and he wouldn’t go out of his way to avoid collateral damage,” he explains, pursing his lips. “So by the time I did join them, people already feared the name, and I thought… I might as well use it to my advantage.”

“As a disguise,” she says, and he shrugs in a clear ‘why not.’ “So what… what do you even, actually _do?”_

“Well, we… we do steal a few things on demand, but I always, um… report it later to the relevant law enforcement agencies.” He clears his throat. Even the admittance of stealing seems to annoy him. “Anonymously, of course. So we get paid, get the job done, build the reputation, and nothing’s actually lost in the end. We tip the scales in a few cartel fights here, get into some skirmishes there… and we burn as many abandoned houses as we can find. You know, as a ‘signature’,” he adds dryly.

At the last word, the laugh she’s been fighting off bursts out as the loud, pig-like snort she hates. “Do you have any idea how _ridiculous_ you are?!”

He straightens up, the embodiment of wounded pride. “I thought it was commendable.”

“Well, yes, but…” She stops laughing, but can’t help smiling. “You don’t have to. There are proper channels for that. There are agencies and the Senates, and—”

“The proper channels don’t work,” he says abruptly, the bitterness in his words catching her off-guard. “Security forces only act when it happens right under their noses, or they have ‘strong evidence of wrongdoing’. As for the Senates…” he trails off, staring into the distance. “Rey, I don’t know where you’re from, if you come from the Republic or the Separatist Alliance, but… the Galactic Senate has good intentions, mostly, but they’re more worried about protocol and bureaucracy and political compromises. And if you think the Separatist Senate and its Head of State Palpatine are even remotely concerned with ending the slave trade, well…” He shoots her a sour, curdled smile. “Allow me to disabuse you of that notion.”

She doesn’t answer. There can be no counterargument to the truth. She knows exactly where her grandfather stands in the matter of slavery, and has very clear ideas of the promises and pacts he strikes in the shadows to exert his influence far beyond his own planet. And while she’s less familiar with the ins and outs of the Republic, she doesn’t doubt Kylo’s words; she’s seen enough inactivity and dissatisfaction in the Republic planets she’s visited over the last year to know he’s telling the truth.

“So I thought… if there’s nothing we can say… if the Senate won’t put an end to the injustice that is just… _rampant_ in every system in every rim,” he says, one hand balling up into a fist at his side, brow knit as he stares down, as if the ground beneath his feet were personally responsible for everything wrong in the universe, “then someone should… bring order to the galaxy. Just a little. Just in the cracks of the system, just where the arms of democracy don’t reach yet. Does that make sense?” He pleads, rather than asks.

It strikes her once again how harmless he seems without the helmet. His face is too young, with eyes that look up at her when they should look down, and with way too much pleading in them. Way too much humanity for a ruthless killer. She should’ve known.

Walking up to him, she holds out a hand. After one infinitesimal second, during which a perplexed Kylo blinks at her, he entwines their hands.

Her long palm and bony fingers are completely dwarfed by Kylo’s enormous, surprisingly smooth hand. There are a couple of ink stains on his fingernails, too, and she wonders what he used to be before joining the knights. Something scholarly, most likely. He’s built like a mountain, and could probably do the work of two grown men, but everything else about him — the way he talks and behaves, his concerns, the flagrant absence of calluses in those hands — screams of someone who dealt in academics of some sort. Someone who knows more about real life than a princess deliberately kept ignorant, who had to sneak into the library of her own palace at night to read and watch muted holovids so her grandfather wouldn’t catch her.

Someone who wanted to make a difference.

“This is very nice, but um,” she scrunches up her nose. “I was actually asking for the cape back.”

“Right!” With a jolt, Kylo takes his hand from hers, hastily giving her the cape. “Of course, here. Take it.”

“Thanks,” she says, biting back a smile as his ears turn a tint of pink again. Behind him, the rays of sun, finally in full bloom from behind the castle, envelop Kylo in a rose-golden glow, and Rey drinks in the view, watching the straight, sharp cut of his profile, and the way the hazel of his eyes sparkles in the light.

 _This light suits him,_ she thinks.

Cape now securely wrapped around herself, Rey bites the inside of her cheek, plucking up the courage to ask the only question left in her arsenal.

“So. I hear you’re… considering taking on an eighth knight?”

His eyes snap back to her, going from astonished to serious in the span of a second. “We’re not currently recruiting new members.”

Rey tries not to be too upset, but she feels her shoulders slump visibly. It’s no wonder yesterday’s invitation has been rescinded, considering everything she’s said to him, but it’s still a disappointment.

Leaning forward, he allows a small smile to escape him. “Except for the ones we’ve personally invited to join us.”

 _Cheeky bastard,_ she thinks, with a slow grin on her face, and she can’t remember the last time she smiled as wide as this. Never, maybe. There hadn’t been reasons to, back in Naboo. But as Kylo winks at her, she thinks maybe there’ll be plenty of reasons to do so in the future. “Have you invited many, by any chance?”

He shakes his head. “Just the one. Some stubborn scavenger we accidentally picked up on Jakku.”

“Scavenger?” she questions, playing offended.

Cocking his head, he considers the question. “Pilot?”

She nods. “Pilot.”

“Pilot it is.” He straightens up to his full height again, and just as he’s about to put his helmet back on, he pauses. “You’ll need one of these, by the way.”

“A helmet? Ugh.”

“Yeah, I know.” Once his helmet is properly adjusted, he adds, “It’s _very_ hot in here, and it’ll do your hair no favors. But no one will know who you are, so there’s that.”

That last one is an extremely attractive prospect of the job, as far as she’s concerned.

“We’ll have to do with just the cowl, meanwhile,” Kylo says, pulling the cowl over her face once again, before adding good-humoredly, “Can’t have you being seen with criminals. Now then, shall we?” he says, offering her his arm with regal flair, as though they’re about to enter a formal ball. Where, _where_ did he get these manners? Who trained _him?_

With a half-bow, she accepts the arm with the stately composure she was taught her whole life. “We shall.”

As they walk towards the castle, Kylo turns to her. “You do know that when I say ‘pilot’, I mean ‘co-pilot’, right? Because I’m the pilot.”

She winks at him. “We’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I realize it's been a little while, but hey, better late than never! Sorry for the bump in the number of chapter — turns out she's a feral gremlin, he's a himbo, and things couldn't happen as straightforwardly as I'd wished XD
> 
> Now, for some references!  
> [Andui](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Andui) | [beautiful human woman in tight black clothes](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bazine_Netal) | [Blumfruit](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Blumfruit) | [Caf](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Caf) | [Chokeroot](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chokeroot) | [Cloud City](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cloud_City) | [Dowutin](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Dowutin) | [Falleen](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Falleen) | [Falumpaset cheese](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Falumpaset_cheese) | [Five-blossom bread](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Five-blossom_bread) | [Fried Endorian Tip-Yip](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Fried_Endorian_Tip-Yip) | [Holocaster](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Holocaster) | [HoloNet News](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/HoloNet_News) | [Mythosaur](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mythosaur) | [Nal Hutta](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Nal_Hutta) | [Separatist Alliance](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Confederacy_of_Independent_Systems) (as this is an AU where things happened differently, the Separatists are still a thing. We'll be seeing more about it next chapter!) | [Tuggs](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Strono_Tuggs) | [Shock collar](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Shock_collar) | [Sullustan](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sullustan) | [Takodana Castle](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Takodana_Castle) | [Togruta](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Togruta) | [Zygerrian](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Zygerrian)
> 
> Thank you to the lovely [Rini](https://twitter.com/rinirawwrrr) for the moodboard, and to my doppelganger [aes](https://twitter.com/aeslis) for the beta. ♥♥♥
> 
> I also have a [musician AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23204260/chapters/55549408) going (with violinist Rey and pianist Ben), in case you like modern settings and music, and a [social media P&P/AITA AU on twitter](https://twitter.com/thehobbem/status/1228487438542286849)!
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://thehobbem.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thehobbem), where I'm constantly weeping over Ben Solo and reylo, sometimes vowing vengeance on jjerrio, and always and respectfully thirsting over Adam Driver.


	3. Chapter 3

_Millennium Falcon. A few standard hours later._

The clinks of glasses are quickly drowned by the various “To Rey!” being shouted — or whispered, or mouthed — as they toast to her.

The lounge of the _Falcon,_ which was so empty yesterday (and dusty, until Trudgen had silently cleaned it with a damp cloth before they landed in Takodana), is now overrun with bottles of Trandoshan ale and multiple boxes and packages of food: besides the standard rations for long trips, which lie neatly piled up and utterly untouched in a corner, they’ve brought tons of Tugg’s Specials, bantha burgers, nerfsteak sandwiches, a couple of plates with huge portions of protato wedges generously covered in melted jerba cheese, and at least twelve bags of crispy hubba chips. Rey hasn’t seen this much food in one place in more than a year, and her stomach grumbles at the mere sight of it.

Before drinking, Vicrul says hoarsely, “Here’s to a long partnership.”

After an extremely long gulp of his ale, Ap’lek adds, “And to finally having someone in the group who knows what they’re doing!”

“Hey!” Kylo protests.

“Boss,” Ap’lek snickers into his glass, his whole face crinkling up in amusement as he adds a small, pitying “c’mon” before drinking again.

Trudgen looks at Kylo with a sympathetic face, making a few apologetic signs. Rey doesn’t understand a lick of Galactic Basic Sign Language, but Trudgen’s expression spells quite clearly the limits of their faith in Kylo Ren.

“Oh, I don’t mean me,” Kylo answers with a grin. “I mean Ushar.”

A few murmurs of agreement go around at that, and from his seat, Ushar raises his glass again.

“About time I get some recognition around here,” he says. Half sprawled on the seat around the dejarik table, with his bulky helmet abandoned on the floor and his tunic hanging from his waist, Ushar looks nothing like the heartless killer he’s supposed to be; in fact, with his sleek, fiery red hair in a loose bun, his deep blue eyes in a suntanned face, and his perfectly sculpted torso, Ushar is probably the most beautiful man Rey’s ever seen in her life, and the last thing she expected to be hiding behind that horrible mask.

As Ap’lek sits across from Ushar, setting the table for a new game, the others gather around to watch (Cardo still working on his second Tugg’s Special), and Kylo takes the seat next to her. After rinsing off the post-battle sweat and dust, they’d both changed into more casual garments, with Kylo going back to the simple pants and dark shirt that suit him much better than all that dramatic black he wears in public. Following his example, all the knights had shed their tunics and masks as well, and the overall view of all the new faces is an unexpected one for Rey.

Without a word, Kylo refills her glass with more emerald wine, and they drink quietly for a moment, watching the dejarik game unfold.

“…and I’m gonna use my special ability.”

“There goes your Mantellian Savrip,” Kuruk says to Ushar with desolate glee.

Ushar sinks back into his seat, watching the board carefully. At his side, Vicrul shakes his head.

“You can’t win against Ap,” he murmurs gruffly.

“No, there has to be a way,” Ushar mumbles back.

Chewing his sandwich loudly, Cardo examines the board before saying to no one in particular, “They should add a rancor to the game.”

All the eyes around the table turn to him in stunned silence, right before they all explode in excited exclamations at the same time.

“They _should_ add a rancor!”

“Why don’t they?!”

“Which special ability would it have?”

Trudgen gestures frantically.

“Yeah, that! No special ability, just the highest attack of the game.”

“But what _if—”_

Hearing the faint huff of a laugh, Rey looks at Kylo. Arms crossed and empty glass in hand, he watches the others with a clear mix of amusement and fondness; she’s had glimpses of it before, in the affectionate way he talks to them when there’s no one else around and no façade to keep, but this is the first time she sees it so plainly written on his face.

He must realize she’s staring at him, because he murmurs to her, without looking away from the knights, “They’re a lively bunch, aren’t they?”

She chuckles. “And some! You’ve been with them for a year, you said?”

Kylo nods, eyes still trained on his little noisy band of companions. “Yes. Ren wanted to retire — said he was getting too old, and that he had a fiancé waiting for him back in Onderon — and asked me to take over because I’m strong in ‘the shadow’,” he says, rolling his eyes at the name that, Rey agrees, is so laughable it wheezes past the territory of ridiculous and lands firmly on ‘melodramatic’. “And I said yes. It was an opportunity to direct their resources into something more… let’s say, constructive.”

She glances at the group, who’s completely absorbed by the question of whether or not rancors would have a reduced movement range on the board. “And they… agreed?”

“Oh, immediately. They don’t want much. As long as they’re free, able to fight and getting money out of it, they’re happy. And…” his lips quirk up in contained laughter, “they have fun pretending to sow chaos. They think it’s a great prank, which I guess it is, in the end. The only one who still has a bit of trouble with the whole ‘no collateral damage’ thing is Kuruk,” he adds, lowering his voice a little as he nods towards his co-pilot on the other side of the room.

They both look over to where she is, perched like a blue bird at the top of the sofa, her bright red eyes trained on Ap’lek as he explains why a rancor would _obviously_ only cover one space per move. The only Chiss Rey had ever seen before was her grandfather’s ally, Admiral Thrawn, who had been to the Theed Royal Palace on a few, brief occasions she was not supposed to ask about. Seeing one Chiss is already in the realm of the highly unlikely, and seeing another approaches the impossible. Yet here Kuruk is, disproving another of Rey’s certainties.

In fact, upon removing her helmet Kuruk had disproved a few. Rey didn’t know whether to be more surprised at seeing a Chiss behind the helmet or a woman, neither of which Rey had remotely suspected Kuruk of being, or at the fact that she looked as glum as she sounded, even as she re-introduced herself to Rey as Brerk’uru’kerrin.

“You mean she doesn’t like it?” Rey whispers back.

“More like… it’s not the way she’s used to thinking. She used to work for the Zann Consortium, I assume you’ve heard of them?”

Rey nods. The name is nothing more than a vague rumor among the common people — one that brings about the same level of dread as “Knights of Ren” — but both the Confederacy and the Republic know the largest crime syndicate in the galaxy far too well; the Consortium has proven hard to get rid of, after establishing a strong military presence on a plethora of planets during the Galactic Cold War.

And that, she thinks bitterly, is entirely her grandfather’s fault, too. Had he not actively promoted secession from the Republic, there wouldn’t have been a Cold War to begin with. Or the Jedi Purge. Or the Clone Wars. In short, there wouldn’t have been so many cracks out of which weeds like the Zann Consortium could sprout.

“Kuruk ran away from Csilla when she was a girl, and got captured by the Consortium. But a Force-sensitive Chiss is…” He trails off and lets that speak for itself, but Rey completes the thought.

“Invaluable.”

He glances at her. “Exactly. Once they realized what they had, they used her as a pilot. She grew up with them,” he adds.

Looking at Kuruk once again, Rey tries to find anything on her face, any trace that would hint at a hardened criminal, but all she can find is a somber, gloomy woman not much older than herself who crouches like an animal instead of sitting, currently absorbed by the hypotheticals of a board game.

“And one day she… left?”

Kylo opens his hands. “She got tired. Said the Consortium was too large and had too many rules for very little compensation.” Even though it’s old knowledge for him, he looks as baffled as if he’s just learned it, and honestly, Rey can’t blame him. Kuruk is a series of improbabilities.

“So yeah, she doesn’t always get the spirit of, you know, ‘not actually killing people’, but she does her best.” At Rey’s horrified look, he hastily adds, “Oh, we… we keep an eye on her. She doesn’t _really—_ you know. But it’s not where her instincts immediately go.”

Thinking of her very first conversation with Ap’lek ( _“I was a scavenger too, back in Dantooine!”_ ), Rey wonders at two such different people, from such different backgrounds, coming together in the same group. Then again, she’s here too, right? And her background couldn’t be more different if she tried. Maybe it’s less a thing to wonder at and more the way the galaxy works, after all. Or maybe the Force. (Well. “The shadow”.)

“What about the others?” she asks, her eyes gliding from one knight to another while her mind tries to wrap itself around some of the people behind the masks.

“Well, let’s see…” Kylo says, examining his rowdy band. “Ap’lek was a scavenger in Dantooine, he told you, right?” She nods, and he discreetly points at Trudgen, at Ap’lek’s side. “Trudge was an asteroid miner in the Unknown Regions. He lost his voice on the job. He couldn’t tell he was straining his vocal cords because of the pain dampers, so…”

Trudgen, meanwhile, is gesturing furiously at Ap’lek, who’s frowning in a concentrated effort to keep up not only with the Basic Sign Language, but also with the thousand expressions that animate Trudgen’s face. It’s a common face, Rey has seen hundreds like it in her wanderings and would’ve had a hard time picking Trudgen from a crowd — unless he started communicating. Between his gestures and the faces he makes, he’s more expressive than most everyone who does have a voice.

Before Ap’lek can put the message together, Vicrul wheezes, “I disagree. I think an acklay could take a rancor. More agile.”

That prompts more vehement gestures from Trudgen and an offended gasp from Cardo. Ushar opens his arms in a silent “See?”

“And, um… did something happen to Vicrul’s vocal cords too?” she asks.

In reply, Kylo covers his mouth while his shoulders shake a little. When he finally gets himself together, he’s once again impassive.

“That’s just the way his voice is,” he says seriously.

Rey snickers. She’d also wondered if it was a Mirialan thing; she’s no specialist in Mirialan culture, but nothing she’s ever read about it mentioned them having voices that were gruff, slightly whiny semi-whispers, so that’s probably a Vicrul thing. All she really knows about the customs of Mirial is that the tattoos on Vicrul’s face and hands mean he’s acquired a certain skill in something. And judging by the number of tattoos, he’s _very_ skillful.

The number of tattoos is only rivaled by the myriad of scars spread across Vicrul’s yellowish green skin, now that she can see it after he threw aside his tunic. His torso and arms are bulky muscle and old gashes that look like they took their sweet time in healing.

“So what’s with the—” She points weakly.

“Scars? Hm. Vic was a gladiator at the Gladiator Night. He uses the Force to heighten his reflexes, so he became one of the best warriors in the gladiator circles at the time.”

“Gladiator Night?” she asks curiously.

He looks at her for a beat too long. “Don’t know it?” She shakes her head. “It’s a series of gladiator fights that happens in Lothal. The gladiators are slaves, of course, so the whole thing is highly illegal,” Kylo says, pursing his lips.

“Wait. Vicrul was a slave?” she whispers, lowering her voice so much she has to practically breathe the words into Kylo’s ear. He doesn’t answer right away, a smattering of pink dusting his cheeks and nose. Before he speaks again, he clears his throat as discreetly as possible.

“Yeah, he and Ushar. Vic was captured, sold, and spent five years in the gladiatorial arenas. He eventually got his freedom for it.”

Rey’s eyes go from Vicrul to Ushar. Still comfortably taking up almost half of the sofa with his legs elegantly stretched out, he listens to the suggestions of possible additions to the dejarik roster with an amused smile. He’s certainly a beauty to behold, but what really gets Rey’s attention is the conspicuous lack of scars on him. His skin looks even more flawless than her own when she called herself the princess of Naboo and had never worked a day in her life. Ushar doesn’t seem to have even a single callus. How is he so… untouched?

“I’m assuming Ushar was not a gladiator,” she ventures, raising an eyebrow.

There’s a long pause, and when she comes to the conclusion Kylo has no reply to offer, he answers in a neutral tone. “He was a pleasure slave.”

“What’s a— oh.”

“Yeah.”

A beat of silence goes on before he elaborates, frowning at the glass in his hands. “He was born a slave, back in Cantonica. Ren freed him — well, Ren convinced him to run away, and Cardo disabled his shock collar. Cardo is always in charge of that,” he adds matter of factly, as an aside. “But he only bought his freedom a couple of months ago. He saved up for it. We all offered to give him the credits, but he wanted to do it on his own. And whatever you do, don’t ever mention it to him.”

She gives him another nod. There’s no point in assuring him that she would obviously never bring it up. They both know that _“Hey, so you were a pleasure slave? Tell me all about it!”_ is not exactly a welcome conversation topic, but he has to warn her against it anyway.

“I’m _telling you,_ there’s no _way_ a wampa could take on a rancor!” Cardo protests vehemently.

“It could if it was in Hoth,” Ap’lek argues.

“What’s Hoth got to do with it?!”

“A wampa can camouflage in the snow, and the rancor wouldn’t even see it coming.”

“Okay, now you’re being ridiculous.”

Rey examines Cardo. The slight lines across his dark face and the occasional white hair mixing with the brown place him very firmly after his 30’s, but the way he attacks his food seems that of a growing teenager in need of food.

On being told she’d need a helmet, Cardo had immediately grabbed her face with both hands and taken a long look at her from up close.

_“Hmm… small head… round… forehead on the big side…”_

_“Hey!”_

_“Not too much, don’t worry, just a tad…” he replies distractedly, turning her head this way and that. “Yeah, I got a couple of helmets that will serve you well. How fond are you of breathing?”_

_“Extremely, I should say.”_

_“Right… Right! In that case, I’ll have to…” Letting her go, he starts walking, mumbling to himself, his mind already consumed by his new task._

_“He’s our armorer,” Kylo whispers to her, “and he’s… really into the job. Uh, Cardo?” he says louder. “Aren’t you going to the lounge for the celebration?”_

_“Later,” is the distant answer as Cardo makes his way down the corridor._

_“Your Tugg’s Special will get cold,” Kylo says loudly, and turning to Rey, he mouths: “Three… two… one.”_

_Cardo emerges through the door once again, heading straight to the lounge. “Well, we can’t have that, I mean, we don’t wanna waste_ food _, do we?”_

_Exchanging smiles with her, Kylo gives her a half-bow, with a gesture towards the direction Cardo disappeared. “After you.”_

“And what about Cardo?” she asks.

“Cardo’s from Onderon.”

“And…?”

“And what?”

“What did he do there?”

Kylo seems confused at that. “He was a tinkerer.”

“That’s it?” she asks, disappointed.

“That’s it. Not everyone in the galaxy has a tragic past, you know,” he says, clearly amused.

“Do you?” Rey asks, before she can stop herself.

The rational part of her knows she shouldn’t ask. If she expects to remain incognito, the quickest way to not attract questions is to not ask them herself. But how is she supposed to do that, with Kylo being… himself?

Technically, there’s not much she knows about him. The only thing she can take as a fact, thanks to his accent, is that he’s from a Core World. That, and the fact he refers to the Confederacy as “the Separatists,” which only people from the Republic do. Anything else is guesswork. But there’s so much more to him than that, so many smaller clues she’s desperate to piece together to form a clearer picture.

Everything he says and does, as well as the way his mind works, points to someone with a scholarly background. At the same time, he’s a warrior, trained in the ways of the Force as only the Jedi of the Old Republic are said to have been. He’s accustomed to command and has impeccable manners, but also ideals that don’t usually go with academia, war or politics — only with naivete.

Kylo Ren is, above all else, a puzzle. How can she not want to try to solve it?

Leaning forward, Kylo refills his glass of wine; he makes to refill hers, but she refuses. She feels light-headed enough as it is. And warm. _Really_ warm. She was never allowed to drink much back in Naboo, and she has no idea what will happen if she goes on drinking now, or how much faster the room will spin when she stands up. What she does know is that she wouldn’t mind using Kylo’s shoulder as a pillow, and sleep there all night.

After a long sip and a prolonged examination of the label on the wine bottle, as if it would somehow provide him with a perfect answer, Kylo replies at last.

“No, I don’t have a tragic past. Just a past.”

“A good one, then?”

He nods uncertainly, as if weighing the words in his head before agreeing with a long exhale. “I’d say so, yes. But it didn’t… lead to a good future. What use is a future where you’re not your own agent?” He gazes up at her, and there’s that pleading in his eyes again that makes Rey wonder if anyone’s ever been able to say no when he looks at them this way. She doubts she could do it.

With a deep breath she doesn’t quite let out, she mumbles, “I take you didn’t get to decide what you were going to do, then?” _I can relate,_ she thinks.

He shakes his head with a huff that is too bitter to be called a laugh. “No, I did not.” Then he adds, softly, as if her thoughts were his personal open book, “You know what that’s like, don’t you?”

No hangover packet could’ve rivaled the sobering effect of those words, and she nearly jumps from her seat.

“What— what do you—”

To her endless annoyance, Kylo snickers. “I knew it.”

 _“You’re too transparent, too quick to react,”_ her grandfather always said. “ _A Palpatine never shows their thoughts for the world to read.”_ Turns out inscrutability has never been her forte. But that doesn’t mean she can’t try.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says in a sulky tone.

“Please. You know too many things common people don’t, and too little of things any worker around the galaxy knows, and you’re too educated.” She opens her mouth to protest, but he cuts her off. “But you’re a Knight of Ren now, so whoever you were before…” — he vaguely waves his hand, dismissing the idea of her past — “doesn’t matter if you don’t want it to, the same as it doesn’t matter for anyone else on this ship,” he finishes, looking straight into her eyes.

It’s only then that Rey realizes her mouth is hanging slightly open, and she closes it. She’d been so confident in her own abilities to read him while keeping her own cards close to her chest that she’d failed to realize that, apparently, her cards were facing outward.

Extending an arm behind her shoulders, Kylo stretches himself by her side not unlike a cat, and with a smug smile that Rey both wants to slap it off his face and think of ways to keep it coming back as often as possible. A complicated combo, perhaps, but nothing about Kylo is simple or easy to ignore. Like the fact that their thighs are now pressed together, which she’s desperately trying (and failing) to forget, or that she can still smell him. The faint scent of soap and _him_ , which to her is vastly undefinable beyond “Kylo” and “makes me want to bury my nose in his neck and never leave again.”

“Have we got ourselves a deal, Rey of Jakku?” he whispers, holding out a hand.

She sighs, but finds a chuckle in the middle of it. “Just Rey. And yes, we have a deal,” she says, shaking his hand.

Ten hours later, more than half of the bottles are empty, stacked in a triangular castle that Ap’lek built, and the food is all but gone; everyone has played at least one round of dejarik against Ap’lek, and everyone has lost. Rey watches as Vicrul and Ushar gently deposit a sleeping Trudgen onto one of the bunks, while Ap’lek already snores on the other. Kuruk has long taken over command of the ship ( _“someone has to,”_ she’d said dismally before exiting the main hold, the only one on the ship fully sober), and Cardo has gone into the other hold to work on Rey’s helmet, much to her dismay. She doesn’t doubt Cardo’s ability to refashion a helmet specifically for her, though her faith in his ability to do so while drunk out of his mind is, perhaps understandably, limited.

Leaving her at the door of the crew quarters, Kylo gives her a smile that is loose enough to hint at all the alcohol he’s had this evening. But considering Rey is smiling just as freely and unprovoked as he is, she’s not one to talk.

“And this,” he says, “is where I leave you for tonight.”

“Where are you going to sleep?” she asks. A more sober Rey would probably pretend not to care, but she’s long past that. This Rey — tipsy, Knight of Ren extraordinaire Rey — doesn’t care one bit about the façades she’s supposed to keep.

“I’m not, I’m gonna be in the cockpit with Kuruk.”

“You think you’re going to be of any use in there like this?” she jokes.

He shoots her a lopsided grin. “Probably not.” He leans against the doorway, so close to her he practically towers over her. “But… I don’t know, is there anywhere else on this ship I’d be more useful tonight?” he asks, voice so low it seeps through her and pools at the pit of her stomach. She holds her breath, and in doing so, breathes in more of him, which does _not_ help.

The problem, she thinks wildly, is that there is a vast disconnect between what should be and what actually is: he _should_ be reeking of alcohol, and the pain she’ll have tomorrow if she continues to crank her neck up to look at his face _should_ be far from an appealing prospect; what actually _is,_ however, is that he still smells as tempting as before, still makes her want to bury her face in his chest and spend the night there, and the neck pain is nothing but a footnote at the farthest edges of a mind far too occupied with looking at him — at the long nose that wouldn’t look good on anyone else, the eyes that reveal everything he struggles to hide, and the small constellation of moles, scattered on his face like clues on a treasure map.

Kylo Ren is an _extremely_ difficult man, that’s what the problem is.

Another problem is the overabundance of answers she has to his question, because she can think of several places where she could use him tonight.

The bed would be a good start. True, the bunk doesn’t look like it comfortably fits two people, especially when one of them happens to be the size of a Kylo Ren — with his large, straight shoulders the size of a wardrobe, the biceps that are barely contained by the long-sleeved shirt and the thick thighs that look toned even underneath the trousers. Sharing a bed with a man that size would probably end with her crushed between him and the wall. That’s a problem she would welcome.

Up against a wall would also work. There’s no doubt in her mind he can effortlessly lift her up and hold her for as long as it takes, “it” remaining modestly nameless for the time being, despite the very clear visuals in her head. What would it feel like, to be held in those arms until neither of them knows when one ends and the other begins, until he has to bury his face in the crook of her neck and the only thing she can remember is his name? To be held and not have to let go?

When he arches his eyebrows at her, she realizes she’s been staring at him, but has offered no answer. She swallows.

“I don’t think so, no,” she murmurs.

_Kriff._

Kylo blinks. Clears his throat. “Right. Yes, of course.” Straightening up, he takes a step back. “Well, then. Sleep well, and, uhh... Kuruk will wake you up in six or seven hours.” With a final nod, he turns on his heel and heads towards the cockpit without looking back.

Door closed behind her, Rey throws herself on the bed and, covering her face with her hands, she groans.

Before Kylo, doing the right thing was always the easiest decision to make; now, everything is an either/or, and she hates it.

She hates how much she wants to say ‘yes,’ how much he clearly wants her to say it, and how much she wants him to just… stay. All the time. (And he did, didn’t he? He didn’t leave her side for one single moment the entire night.) Above all else, she hates the way she can’t allow herself to have him. Not as long as he doesn’t know who she truly is, and there’s very little chance of _that_ happening — the name ‘Palpatine’ is more than loathed around the galaxy, especially in the Republic. With good reason. Even the thought that prince Ben Solo had only agreed to marry her because he was forced to is enough to make her sick, and she doesn’t care about _his_ opinion! How many times worse wouldn’t it be if Kylo knew the truth?

She can’t tell him the truth.

But she also can’t sell him a lie.

✦✴✦

_Imthitill, Ando. 4 standard months later._

“I told you to go left!” Kylo hisses.

He stops another blast with the Force, and Rey huffs beneath her helmet. He _has_ to show off, doesn’t he? A couple of guards turn the corner and immediately hit the ground with two exceedingly well-placed shots from Kuruk’s blaster rifle.

“I did go left!” Rey hisses back.

“How is this left?!”

“How is it not?!”

“I meant _my_ left, not yours!”

_“How was I supposed to know that!”_

“Reeeally not the time, you guys,” Ushar whispers from the other side of the hallway, swinging his club in an almost casual fashion and knocking out a guard.

“Right. Ushar, you and Cardo go left then—”

“Which left?” Cardo asks drily. Rey snickers, and she just _knows_ he gave her a sideways glare underneath the helmet.

“My left, your right, and—”

“Our right as we are now or when we turn?”

“Go _that way,_ ” Kylo says, pointing at the direction in question as his voice teeters on the edge of impatience. “Rey and I will go down _this_ way. Kuruk, give us cover.”

“Don’t I always,” Kuruk replies flatly.

Kylo starts to get up and Rey follows suit, but he suddenly crouches by Kuruk’s side again. “Kuruk, remember: legs and shoulders only.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she replies, surly.

He tilts his head. “Do you really?”

Kuruk turns her head towards Kylo, as carefully and slowly as a sniper taking aim, and Rey would pay an unthinkable number of credits to be able to see her face under the mask. In his defense, it’s a fair question: she said the same during the mission on Kashyyyk.

“Because you said the same during the mission on Kashyyyk,” Kylo adds.

“They’re still alive, aren’t they?”

“You use the term loosely, but sure. Anyway, just… keep that in mind. And _don’t_ hit the pipes, or the temperature will rise to unbearable levels. Rey, let’s go.”

He and Rey dash down the hall to the sound of blaster shots raining down and hitting walls, ceilings and armor, followed by not an insignificant number of bodies crashing to the floor (and it’s all she can do not to look back and make sure the guards really are only incapacitated). She swings her staff into someone’s knees and sends them to the ground, while Kylo sends people flying against the ceiling left and right with a wave of his hand, before they even have a chance to draw their blasters. But overall, they don’t find as many guards as they should under normal circumstances. Ap’lek and the others have made a great job of creating a diversion on the opposite side of the underwater base.

Every corridor looks like the previous one: an endless straight line of such blinding white that they only realize there’s a corner coming up when they see the refrigeration pipes on the ceiling bending right or left. Sometimes Kylo hushes out a small “wait” and stops for a couple of seconds, while Rey looks out for more guards. She can feel him reaching out with the Force, trying to find which way to go next, before he motions her to follow again.

The base is nothing short of a labyrinth, but they eventually find their way into the Archive — heavily guarded, as it was bound to be. The amount of priceless information in this one room is incalculable; even just a third of it would be worth the ransom of the entire Galactic Core.

Not wasting a second, Rey gets to work making liberal use of her staff. It had taken her a couple of months to adjust to fighting with the mask on (an old Mandalorian helmet which, it has to be said, really was perfectly repurposed for her, against all the odds of a drunken Cardo), as well as in clothes that completely cover her from the neck down. At least she was allowed to skip the heavy leather that seems to be a unanimous preference among the Knights of Ren, and choose lighter fabrics, even if they had to be dark.

_“You have to match,” Kylo said as he handed her the newly bought black cape with a barely contained smile. “We have a very specific aesthetic going on, you know.”_

But she’ll freely admit the cape and cowl look good.

Rey gets rid of her share of the guards while people fly by and hit the walls every now and then, interspersed with the occasional sound of Kylo’s blaster. He’s a great shot, and extremely fond of Force throwing people; not too fond of using his lightsaber, though, as it rarely leaves the clip on his belt.

_“It draws too much attention,” he explained when asked. “There’s an entire generation who doesn’t know what a lightsaber is, and the ones who still remember get too nervous or too hopeful.” He chuckles humorlessly. “The Jedi have been grossly misrepresented since The Purge. Too lionized or too demonized.”_

_Which is absolutely true. On her travels, Rey’s heard the most absurd tales about the Jedi, for good and for bad; some verge on the comical, if the tragedy of the Purge weren’t so great._

_“You used your lightsaber on Plutt, though.”_

_He looked away. “That’s different. I was angry.”_

Between the two of them, they make short work of the guards, and soon it’s just them, a plethora of unconscious people on the ground plus a couple sprawled over the console, and a vast expanse of shelves. The room is made of nothing but row upon row of shelves, floor to ceiling, divided in small cubbyholes.

“Number?”

“120917,” she replies promptly.

Cubbyhole 120917 has a single data cube in it, as all the other cubbyholes, and would be virtually indistinguishable from its neighbors if each didn’t have their numeric designation at the bottom. But this one, among a sea of data cubes that contain between them the most important information in the galax, is the only one that matters to them.

Kylo turns it this way and that. It looks like a baby’s toy in his hand. He turns to her, and not even the voice modifier in his mask can disguise his satisfaction as he shows her the cube:

“Ready to go find your own kyber crystal?”

✦✴✦

_Crystal Cave, old Jedi Temple, Ilum. 3 standard weeks later._

She should’ve known it was going too well.

Once they had the data cube, they had all the information necessary. Timing their trip to Ilum so it was aligned with the seventeenth day of its solar cycle, for instance, was easy; making the trip while listening to Kylo’s long lecture on the nature of kyber crystals was also easy, although for very different reasons.

For all his long, broody silences, Kylo Ren could be quite the rambler sometimes. Sure, you had to unlock a topic that fully interested him, but _oh_ when you did. Over the last few months aboard the _Falcon,_ Rey has learned which ones make him tick: so far, she has “ships,” “the Force as an abstract,” “Jedi and Sith lore,” “dejarik,” “the failures and shortcomings of the current political systems in place,” “fighting techniques,” “books,” and, surprisingly, “calligraphy.” How or why he developed such an archaic hobby is such a baffling mystery she’s beginning to wonder whether he was raised by monks from millennia ago.

But despite the dryness of the subject, hearing Kylo ramble on is one of her favorite things to do during a trip, when it’s just the two of them in the cockpit and the infinite vastness of the galaxy outside. And each time she finds something new to marvel at.

Sometimes it’s his long, angular profile, and his impossibly fluffy hair that looks perfect even after a fight. Sometimes, it’s the way he obviously thinks too much and too fast for his mouth to keep up with, and has to pick up his own pace when he talks; the way he genuinely thinks galactical history is a profoundly interesting topic of conversation, or how he absolutely does not judge her or think less of her for not knowing nearly as much — he instead takes it as an opportunity for more conversation. The way he listens to her opinions and questions like they’re actually worth listening to, and how he can make the dullest things sound funny only with a small shift of his tone. And sometimes, it’s the way he stares at her, like she hung each one of the thousand moons of Iego up in the sky.

All of that was the best, easiest part of their mission so far. The freezing temperature of Ilum was manageable, and parting the waterfall she needed to cross with the Force was child’s play as well.

What’s in front of her now, however, is not easy at all. In fact, it just might be the most difficult thing she’s ever done.

 _“The Crystal Cave is a vergence point, which means the Force is more… concentrated there. It’s intensified.” Kylo looked at her, serious. “And it knows it. It knows_ you, _too. It knows every single one of your weaknesses, and it will hit you where it hurts.”_

He’s right, as usual, which makes him insufferable at times. The Force does know where to hit her, because right in front of her is herself, sitting on a throne.

She’s never seen that throne before, for the simple fact it doesn’t exist. She _knows_ it doesn’t because she’s seen this exact same room a thousand times: the Grand Room of the Confederate Congress on Raxus, presided over by her grandfather. But instead of the slightly ornate chair of the Head of State, it’s an actual, massive black throne, before which all the Confederacy senators are bowing. Bowing to _her_.

Rey Palpatine.

Wearing a black and red silk dress that only the royal seamstress of Naboo could ever design, Rey Palpatine smiles beatifically upon the humbled senators. Then slowly, like the stars opening up for a ship coming out of hyperspace, they make way for another hooded figure clad in black. Be it for the mask, for the way the cape is thrown around his shoulders, or simply for the way he walks, Rey would recognize this person anywhere in the galaxy, even with her eyes closed.

He stands in front of the throne, looking straight at her. Someone in the shadows warns him, “Bow before the Empress Palpatine.”

The Rey on the throne raises a hand. “That won’t be necessary.” And with a smile, she adds, “Kylo Ren. I was waiting for you.” Without another word, she points at a throne, a smaller one, next to hers.

Infinite moments of silence go by before Kylo takes off his mask, and both Reys can once again see the face they keep dreaming of.

Only, in Rey Nobody’s dreams, he doesn’t scowl at her.

“You think I would sit by your side? You’re a Palpatine,” he replies. If Rey thought she’d heard in his voice all the contempt it could hold when he talked about slavery, it was because she had never heard him utter the word ‘Palpatine.’ “You’re everything I despise in this galaxy.” Suddenly, he turns to her, Rey Nobody, standing on the side with her old staff in hand, and their eyes lock. He can see her as much as he sees Empress Rey.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t find out who you are?”

“I—” is all she can manage before the words get lost in her throat. The cold, indifferent way he looks at her makes her heart cave in until it feels like there’s nothing left of it. Perhaps there isn’t. Perhaps it sits between his teeth right now.

“Kylo, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

 _“Empress Palpatine…”_ She hears the words coming from hazy, dark corners of the room, from voices like snakes made of shadows, ready to pounce at the first sign of hesitation between fight or flight.

“Did you really think others would welcome you into their midst?” another voice asks, and she freezes.

This voice has lived in her head for as long as she’s understood herself as a person. When she looks back towards the throne, she sees him.

Her grandfather stands behind the throne, older and wizened in a dark hood, but with the same lucid eyes that seem to pierce her every thought. And like every other moment in her life, she’s rooted to the spot with just one word, her feet refusing to obey and her body buried in too much abject terror to move.

“Did you really think,” he continues, with a slow smile that could probably shrivel all life around it, were there any here, “you had anything to offer? That you would be _loved?_ ”

The mockery in his voice as clear as the contempt in Kylo’s — as real as the hot sting in her eyes or the frantic pulse of her heart, trying to beat its way out of her ribcage so painfully she’s this close to ripping it open with her own bare hands. She would rather watch it fall on its face and flop helplessly on the floor than to feel like _this,_ like she’s a failure and a fool for believing anyone would ever love her for who she is, for believing she had anything anyone could ever want or need, and that she had intrinsic value beyond her last name.

“You are just like me, my child,” her grandfather says. “There is no escaping what you were born to be. Ruling the galaxy is the destiny of the Palpatines, it’s in your blood!”

 _“Rey Palpatine, ruler of the galaxy,”_ the shadows hiss. She looks around in a frenzy, trying to locate the voices, but all there is to see are motionless confederate senators with their heads bowed, corners immersed in darkness, and her grandfather’s macabre smile dripping with her deepest fears.

“Join me, Kylo Ren,” Rey Palpatine says from her throne as she extends a hand to him. “We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy. Isn’t that what you want?”

He shakes his head, the fear in his eyes as obvious as his disdain. “Not like this. Not with _you._ ”

Rey Palpatine frowns. “I’m the Empress of the galaxy.”

“Not to me.”

Kylo looks at the Rey on the throne, and then at her, Rey Nobody, who has no throne and no galaxy. The Rey who has nothing but a staff, the dark clothes she wears as a Knight of Ren, and the desperate desire that he and the others will still want her at the beginning of each new day.

The Kylo in front of her offers her only a cold, hard stare she’s never been at the end of and words that bite. “You’re nothing.”

Rey shuts her eyes so tightly she sees stars, but that doesn’t stop the tears from running down her cheeks. _This is not real,_ she tells herself, _it’s not real._

The mantra is useless: she can repeat it as many times as she wants, it won’t stop it from being real _someday._ There will be a day when she’ll hear those exact same words from him and the others, and she won’t be able to ascribe it to a cruel illusion of the Force. She’ll hear those words and she’ll deserve them.

“You see, my child,” she hears her grandfather say, “you’re nothing without me. Without my name, you’ll have no one.”

 _“Take the throne,”_ the shadows murmur, _“and you’ll never have to be alone again.”_

When she opens her eyes, it’s to the sight of Kylo Ren putting on his mask again. Without another word, he turns around and leaves her.

_“No one can leave the Empress if she so decides.”_

Eyes trained on Kylo Ren’s back as it grows ever distant, Rey hears Palpatine again.

“You can’t forget who you are, my child. No one else will.”

It’s true. It’s all true. Running away from her grandfather, calling herself Rey Nobody, working menial jobs, playing at being a Knight of Ren — it’s all an act on borrowed time. Sooner or later she’ll run out of those precious seconds of peace she greedily hoards until the moment she’s found out for the lurking monster she is. And when they do, they’ll walk away. They’ll leave her on the first planet they get to, and she’ll be alone again.

 _“Who you really are,”_ the shadows insist.

_“…doesn’t matter if you don’t want it to.”_

She blinks.

The words come like an echo from the bottom of a well of eons ago, but she manages to cling to them just as she’s about to drown; unlike the hisses from the shadows, which speak of a future she dreads, this is the fragment of a memory she cherishes. A real memory.

_“Whoever you were before doesn’t matter if you don’t want it to.”_

Kylo, who has stopped asking questions and insists that pasts don’t matter on the _Falcon._

“Rey of House of Palpatine. Come. Take your place by birthright.” Her grandfather gestures at the throne, now empty. “The Empress of Naboo, and then, Empress of the galaxy! Fulfill your destiny!”

_“What use is a future where you’re not your own agent? You know what that’s like, don’t you?”_

Kylo, who somehow understands, even without knowing.

“That’s… not my destiny,” she says. Her voice comes out small and scared, but it does come out at long last.

“You don’t know the galaxy like I do,” her grandfather retorts with his unpleasant, rotten smile. “You have nowhere else to go, no one else who wants you.”

_“To Rey! Here’s to a long partnership!”_

She grits her teeth, her hand tightening its grip on the staff as a wave of anger threatens to wash over her. “That’s not true.”

This time her voice comes out clear. It bounces off the walls and fills up the room, reaching every one of its darkened corners. She gets a quick glimpse of a glimmer, but when she looks in that direction, it’s gone. A cracking sound comes from the darkened corners.

_“A new friend!” said Ap’lek._

All her life she’s dreamed of a place where she’d be accepted for who she is, regardless of the name and bloodline she hates, a place where she’d be greeted with smiles and welcome backs, from where she would be missed when she was not around.

A place where she would be wanted.

_“I want you to join me. Us. You should join us.”_

“I do have a place to go, and it’s not with you,” she says, daring to look into her grandfather’s eyes once again. He’s old and decrepit, a shadow of the Emperor Palpatine she’s feared her whole life, but most importantly, he’s not here. He’s far away in a completely different system, and he can’t hurt her. Not anymore.

The cracking sound goes up the walls and spreads to the ceiling.

“You think they will accept you?” Palpatine cackles. “They don’t know you. No one does.”

_“Who are you?” Kylo asked._

_“I’m nobody.”_

_“Hardly.”_

“But I know myself.” The anger she felt not a moment ago gives way to complete certainty, and it’s armed with this that she adds, “And I’m nothing like you.”

The cracking gets louder, and the second she looks up and realizes the ceiling is completely fractured, the Grand Room shatters in a thousand pieces. Rey barely has time to cover her face with her arms, and all she hears for a few seconds is the sound of a shower of shards of glass hitting the ground.

When the sound stops, she slowly uncovers her face, and her eyes widen.

She’s in the cave once again.

The pedantic part of her brain reminds her that she never actually left the Crystal Cave; that the Grand Room, the throne, and everything else were merely an illusion. It just felt frightfully real.

The cave is as dark as it was when she first came in, except for one point of bright light, and she steps towards it. There, embedded in the dark stones that make the walls of the cave, is a jagged, yellow crystal the size of her hand, and she only has to give it a couple of light shakes before it comes off in her palm.

Her own kyber crystal. For her own lightsaber.

And she almost can’t see it through the tears.

* * *

Sitting outside the old, snow-covered Jedi temple, Kylo waits.

If, of course, by “sitting” and “waiting” one means “sitting down only to stand up again,” “pacing back and forth,” “trying to bite his nails before he realizes it’s too cold to take off his gloves” and “running his hand through his hair so often it looks like he’s been through a hurricane,” then yes, Kylo Ren is sitting and waiting.

In all fairness to him, he’s usually good at waiting. You don’t spend all of your formative years alone with your quasi-monk uncle on an island, being trained in the ways of a religion that no longer exists, and _not_ get good at waiting.

For ten years, his days consisted mostly of waiting for Luke to tell him he was ready to learn more, for the day he’d get a better hold of the Force that saw fit to run through him like a tidal wave, and for the universe to give him a sign that this was what he was supposed to be doing. Waiting for Luke to keep him company when he was alone, or for the day uncle Chewie would bring him a message from his dad saying he was wrong, that he should’ve never let his son be sent away, and that he was coming back to get him and teach him to be a pilot, just like he’d promised. He waited when there was nothing to wait for but absence, interspersed with lots and lots of meditating, which is simply waiting for nothing in particular.

As a senator, a lot of the work involved frustratingly long waits, because waiting for others to see common sense is the most infuriating kind. And yet in that, too, he acquitted himself well.

But waiting for Rey to come out of the cave is borderline unbearable.

The memory of his own ordeal in the Crystal Cave remains far too real even to this day; as he slowly circles a fallen, half-crumbled pile of rocks, he can still easily conjure up the crackle of a red, unstable lightsaber in his hands, and remember the extremely vivid sensation of stabbing his own father with it. All an illusion, courtesy of the Force, but which felt so real that, to this day, it still shows up in the occasional nightmare.

In all of his teachings, Luke had casually forgotten to mention the Force can also be cruel enough to inflict upon you the parts of yourself you’re most afraid of — the bits and pieces you try to hide, your lowest thoughts and basest grievances you push away in an effort to rise above them. That is a facet of the Force that the Jedi texts rarely cover. It figures.

Sitting down again on a rock, Kylo plays with the seam of his long, dark coat, twisting it between his fingers as he stares at the entrance of the temple. He dreads to think of what the Force is showing Rey. He doesn’t know the exact shape of her fears, but he can take a polite guess that it’s whatever (or whoever) she’s running away from. And while he knows how she reacts to external danger, what happens when the danger comes from within?

_“Can’t you come with me, uncle L— master Luke?”_

_Luke knelt down by his side. “Sorry, Ben, not this time. This is something you must face on your own. It’s a rite of passage.”_

Rationally, Kylo understands that the ordeal must be faced alone. But he _wants_ to be with her in there, regardless of the Force or what reason says; there’s nothing reasonable about the way he behaves around her anyway.

The past months have consisted solely of following the sound of her voice around the ship as soon as he wakes up, before he’s even had his first cup of caf, of finding excuses to be in the same part of the ship as she is throughout the day, and only letting her go when night comes (just when he most wishes he could keep her). How could he not want to spend every waking moment near her, now that he knows the galaxy holds someone as Rey in its embrace?

He should tell her that.

He should tell her… stars, everything. At least, everything that matters. That her smile is so beautiful it’s excruciating to look at it sometimes, and that, way too frequently, he loses entire threads of conversations because he gets lost in the freckles on her skin. That talking to her and being near her makes him feel like his life might not be a waste after all, if she’s what he found at the end of 30 years. That she is the one with whom he has all the conversations in his head, and that even when he has nothing to say, she’s the one he wants to say that nothing to. That he missed the entry point into the Incisor Sidestep route the other day because he was too engrossed in hearing her talk about the planets she would like to visit next — she hasn’t been traveling for long, that much is clear, but Force forbid he ever brings it up. She’d _bristle_ at him, like the feral Loth-cat she is, which is just another reason to lov— he should tell her.

Standing up, he walks up to the entrance, then goes all the way back and sits down again, running a hand through his hair for the thousandth time. Today. He’s going to tell her today.

* * *

As she slowly emerges from the entrance, Rey shields her eyes from the light. The sun’s already dipping low in the horizon, but the glare of the snow is a sharp contrast to the darkness of the cave.

Blinking, waiting for her eyes to adjust, she makes out Kylo’s silhouette striding towards her, and the relief of seeing Kylo walking _towards_ her instead of _away_ from her is so sudden her knees nearly buckle, and she stops where she is.

“Hey!” he says, looking anxious as he reaches her. “Did you…?”

Wordlessly, she opens her left hand to show him her kyber.

He holds his breath. “You did it,” he whispers. “It’s— can I…?” he asks, and she nods. He gently picks it up and examines it against the dying light of the sun as it sets in the horizon.

“Amazing,” he says, eyes focused on the crystal. “It’s so big. Mine’s so small it could be in a necklace or something, but yours is huge. And _yellow._ I mean, most kybers glow green or blue — there are other colors, of course, but they don’t happen nearly as often. This is so rare.” Through the blur in her eyes, she sees him shake his head and turn back to her. “And beautiful, too, just like y—” He freezes, his eyes growing wide.

“Rey, are you— what happened?” She hears the way his voice goes small with shock, and she ducks her head, as if it’s enough to hide the tears. Not that she’s ever been any good at hiding herself from him.

“Sorry,” she says, hating the tremble in her voice. “I’m being stupid.”

“You’re not being stupid,” he says quietly. Rey doesn’t reply, choosing instead to stare at the snow under their feet; but she does notices him slightly raising his arms before dropping them again, and wonders if he was going to touch her. Maybe hold her. She can’t remember a time when she was held in her entire life — except for when she ran into the _Falcon_ for the first time and fell straight into Kylo’s arms during takeoff. And that wasn’t even on purpose.

She wants him to hold her on purpose. She wants him to stay, to never look at her the way he did in the cave, to never say those words, she wants him to— she wants _him._

Kylo stoops a little to meet her eyes. “Was it what you saw in there?”

The gentleness in his voice cracks her fragile illusion of self-control, and her eyes well up again. “It… it really is stupid, don’t worry,” she says, trying to give him a smile, but the tears rolling down her face don’t exactly help.

There’s a dull _thud_ as her kyber hits the snow, and the next thing she knows, Kylo has her in his arms, pulling her face into his chest. She instinctively wraps her arms around his waist.

“It’s not stupid,” he murmurs. One of his hands lands softly on her hair. “It must’ve been terrifying.”

At those words, she feels Kylo’s Force signature falter, like a wave receding from the shore, engulfed in horror and sorrow.

_“It knows every single one of your weaknesses, and it will hit you where it hurts.”_

“You saw something too,” she mumbles, realization dawning on her. “When you got your kyber.”

“Mhhm. I was ten.”

“Was it…?”

“The worst moment of my life? Yeah,” he says. His hand caresses her hair, and it’s the gentlest touch she’s ever received from anyone, which only brings more tears. “So no, you’re not being stupid.”

 _I thought you were leaving me. I thought everyone would leave me._ Her next words come out in a terrified whisper. “I never felt so alone.”

Kylo tightens his embrace, as if trying to make up for all the years she had never been held. “You’re not alone.”

The way he says it, less like a denial and more like a fact that allows no dispute, makes every muscle in her body lose the painful tension that’s been pulling at her edges and tearing her apart. Finally, she lets the remainder of her tears fall free.

And Kylo doesn’t go anywhere for as long as she has tears to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, um. The number of chapters went up again. But I was given to understand you guys don't mind, so with your permission, I'll take advantage of that just one more time XD But it's the last one!
> 
> Some references for this chapter:  
> [Trandoshan ale](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Trandoshan_ale) | [Bantha burgers](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bantha_burger/Legends) | [Nerfsteak sandwich](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Nerfsteak_sandwich) | [Protato wedge](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Protato_wedge) | [Jerba cheese](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jerba_cheese) | [Hubba chips](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hubba_chips) | [Rancor](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rancor) | [Ren](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ren) | [Chiss](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chiss) | [Admiral Thrawn](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mitth%27raw%27nuruodo) | [Zann Consortium](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Zann_Consortium) | [Mirialan](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mirialan) | [Gladiator Night](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Gladiator_Night) | [Cantonica](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cantonica) | [Imthitill](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Imthitill) | [Kashyyyk](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kashyyyk) | [Data cube](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Data_cube) | [Kyber crystal](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kyber_crystal) | [Crystal Cave](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Crystal_Cave) | [Vergence](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Vergence)
> 
> As usual, thanks to my faithful beta and cheerleader [aes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeslis/pseuds/aeslis)!
> 
> If you like the fic and has no problem with having reylo on main, here's the [Twitter promo post](https://twitter.com/thehobbem/status/1323047982724452353) and [the Tumblr one](https://thehobbem.tumblr.com/post/633628926979276800/rarely-so-well-arranged-chapter-3-princess-reys), help a writer out and spread the word! ^^
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](https://thehobbem.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thehobbem), where we can cry together over how much we love reylo, how much Star Wars broke our hearts, and practice lots of respectful, social distancing, mask-wearing thirsting over Adam Driver. ♥


End file.
